Jingle Jangle
We’ve been in high holiday mode here at Casa de Possum. We went and visited firefighter Santa for free this weekend. As you can see from the above pic, it was not necessarily high class. This was the best picture of the bunch and I’m debating if I need to go spend a bunch of money on a picture with a fancier Santa, but the frugal side is winning out I think. Plus, who wants to stand in line? It was a lot simpler before Erik started school and we could go at 10 am on a weekday morning.
Our elf has been giving us daily assignments, some that are more fun than others. Yesterday we made paper snowflakes. I didn’t expect it to go over well, but it was the most popular thing we’ve done I think! They only quit because we made them, then they were both at it again this morning. Of course Elsa doesn’t know how to cut her snowflake so that it will still open up. She just ends up with shreds of paper, but that’s ok. I think I’m going to print off some cool templates for Erik and see if he can make some Star Wars snowflakes.
We also had a little Swedish-eque get together on Sunday. I don’t like saffron buns, so made cinnamon buns instead. We had mulled wine and the cinnamon rolls. It was quite festive, except I made a huge mistake. I was trying to explain how yeast works to Elsa and explained that the yeast eats the sugar then farts out air and that’s what makes the buns fluffy. She then determined that the cinnamon buns were called farts and kept telling everyone “My mommy is making farts! When are we going to eat farts! I love farts!” and on and on. Just two minutes ago she crawled up on my lap and asked for a fart. While hilarious, this is not a cute family inside joke/tradition I want to establish.
Yesterday a package arrived while Erik was home and he wanted to open it. I’ve managed to hide the fact that we are receiving approximately 10 zillion packages a week from him, so he has not really figured out that he could search through the house for hiding spots. My sister and I used to ransack our house and find all our gifts. We would even open the presents from my grandma (she always just stuck things in gift boxes and secured them with a piece of tape). It ruined Christmas every year, but we never learned our lesson.
I ran up to my room with the package, locked the door and tried to find a place to hide the gift. All my gift hiding places were filled up, so I had to improvise. He was standing outside the door, caterwauling the whole time, trying to get me to tell him where I was hiding the package. I knew if he looked hard enough he would find it, so when I finally left the room I locked the door behind me. Our doors just have the little privacy locks, but the previous owners left little keys to them on each door molding. I vacuumed up two of them before I realized what was happening (yes, I vacuum my moldings), but we have one left and that’s all you need.
I put the key where it belonged, then went downstairs. I heard a commotion and went up to find Erik trying to swat the key down with a towel. I took the key and tried to hide it, which led to a merry chase all through the house. I finally convinced the kids the key was hidden in Elsa’s room (by sheer trickery, not by actually telling them that) so they spent a good hour searching in her room. They finally gave up and decided the best way to find the key was to have me give them hints. They didn’t seem to understand the concept that I was hiding it from them so they wouldn’t use it. I was not about to give them hints.
Of course I eventually had to open my bedroom door and Erik started going through my closet. He was sorely disappointed when he found a big box full of Disney baby dolls (meanwhile I was laughing hysterically). They’re my birthday party gift stash, all bought on clearance. I think he was tricked enough to believe that’s what I was hiding, but who knows. I just know I need to wrap up some of the gifts while Elsa is in school today so I can not be quite as worried about him finding them.
When I think of the actually quantity of work I need to accomplish in the next 7 days, I start to get a little panicky. But here I sit, typing out an entry instead of actually getting any of it done. I can’t really wrap with Elsa in the house, but I don’t know when I’m going to be able to get any work done since she only has preschool today and Thursday–and Thursday is her program. Maybe I should send out a request to the babysitting co-op. I’m sure someone has time to watch an extra kid for a couple of hours, right? Hahahaha.
Ok, off to get something done! May your day be productive!