Christmas hangover

After 5 days of family, fun and heavy food I am feeling like the elf on the right: tired and in need of a nap, fresh vegetables and a glass of water.  Oh Christmas, how we love you.  Five days in a row of cooking, hosting, visiting, gift unwrapping and child wrangling. By today we were all ready to hang it up, kids included.  

The Christmas decorations came down today including Elf Village and the tiny vintage paperboard houses.  That Smoky book mark is getting framed and hung in the camper.

Ornaments were taken off of the tree; vintage spinners, glass beehives, the satin angel that was tacked to the ceiling of the trailer when I was little.

Blankets were folded.  My mother made the plaid one in the 80's and we used it as a tree skirt.  Our oldest has been asking a lot of hard questions about her lately.  I think it would have pleased her to see us using the blanket she made as part of making Christmas special for the kids.

The vintage lead animals and new paperboard barn (Wal-mart, seriously) are ready to be stored.

Doggy Doo has been played at all hours of the day - here at 6:30 a.m.  The oldest played this game on Halloween with his cousins and has not stopped talking about it since.  He unwrapped it on the 26th at my sister's house: "MAMA! I GOT DOGGY DOO!!!!!"  He is so happy about it.  Yep, we've got boys.

My dad found this huge train table at a thrift store for $20 back in October and we saved it away as a Christmas gift for the oldest. it even has storage bins underneath.

 *I* love it.  As in, I play with the wooden trains more than my son does but whatever.  Wow, is it fun.  He already had sme of these pieces but Papa added a bunch to the set. 

I made a Black Forrest cake from scratch for my Mother in Law's birthday.

Bee licked a plate of Christmas cookies.  They were immediately thrown out.

The oldest got a nature exploration kit from his Aunt and we've been taking walks with the compass, binoculars and emergency whistle.

I got this as a joke Birthday gift.  Set it in the bathroom to see what would happen and the husband immediately hid it when company came over.  Dang it!

The little one is *almost* ready to start creeping.  He loves his new Christmas play mat.

But he mostly loves bouncing in his doorway jumper and beating up his older brother.

Today we took the tree outside and set it up by the dining room window.  Then we hung the slices of dried fruit up along with the pine-cones rolled in peanut butter and bird seed.  We talked about how happy the birds would be with their Christmas gift and how it would be a good meal when they are hungry.  I hope to leave the tree up all winter and we can add more bird feed as needed.

We did jump in some muddy puddles.  And kick up some deer bedded down out back.  The oldest knows lots of Christmas songs this year; our favorite of which is "Frosty the Snowman" but this kid insists that the lyrics are "Frosty the Snowbank" who has "two eyes made out of crazy".   I can't even hold myself together when he starts into this stuff.

My nephew took the win for best Christmas gift given this year.  He's 7 years old.  While my sister was wrapping Christmas gifts for my kids he came downstairs holding this little book, his favorite baby book, and said he wanted to give it to his cousins for Christmas.  "Are you sure, honey?" my sister asked him.  And he was.  He thought they would like it and wanted to give it to them.  By himself he came up with this.  This kid.  My nephew is such a little mother hen sometimes that it breaks your heart.    He has such a love for babies and an intuitive sense for things.  My Family and I joke because he likes to come up to me every time we're together and say something like "Umm.... Aunt T?   (pauses and looks to the heavens while deciding how to be tactful)  ...  I think Baby A is hungry/cold/needs a diaper (said in the voice of an adult talking to a complete idiot). It's so adorable.  I think we have a future pediatrician in the family. 

It was a very Merry Christmas. Time to welcome the New Year.