ChristThanksgivingmas (long post)

I'm so confused because we actually decorated for Christmas on Thanksgiving Day instead of eating turkey. I'm such a rule follower that putting the tree up before or on Thanksgiving just felt so wrong. But since it was school and business as usual, I wanted something fun to look forward to! When the girls got home from school we said, "Who wants to put up the Christmas tree?" And everyone squealed! Well Addison didn't, she just said something in Chinese I think.

The one thing Addison is allowed to play with is the Little People Nativity- always a favorite at our house!

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What next Daddy?
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This just kills me, she had ripped out her bow and looks just like her Daddy did when he was a wee one. (Just looked at this again and she has really grown!)
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Ok, here's a little confession. I was almost embarrassed to put up pictures of our Christmas decorations. I know that is really dumb, but still. I see beautiful pictures of homes that have every room decorated and it's just breathtaking. Well, not here folks. This is it and I've come to accept it and be proud of it. We did score some 10 cent ornaments last year on the day after Christmas at Target last year. And $20 stockings that were only $2 each! I would love to have trees with coordinating ornaments and beautiful ribbons, etc. But I also love our hodge-podge of ornaments.

Once upon a time I had beautiful red star (now on the mantle) but our tiny tree was not sturdy enough to hold it's heaviness. But, look at this! A homemade angel by Cerys, I love it!

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Some of my favorite ornaments:

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This one looks a bit rough, but I made it in 1979.
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The only thing we could afford in the Harrod's Christmas sale: this tiny Harrod's Bear!
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We try to get an ornament from places we've been, this one from Holland in 2004 when Marc took me to see my favorite flowers, tulips!

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South African
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Our little mantle with some African nativity scenes and one Precious Moments one that was bought for me by my mother-in-law. Also, the $2 stockings from Target (and the red star tree topper that is too heavy!)
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It only took about an hour to put up our decorations, but it was so fun. What made it even more fun was that the next day, Friday, it started snowing and I was so happy I could not contain it. It was just too perfect: a clean house, decorations up, baking for our feast and a weekend. The girls were so excited to walk home in the falling snow. It stopped snowing late that night but it's only been in the 20's so it's still on the ground. In all our years of Wales, it's never been this cold!

On Saturday we actually had our Thanksgiving feast with two other American families that live here in the city. I cooked the turkey and sweet potatoes and some desserts and they brought the rest. I had to call my mom to get my instructions for the turkey and Marc prepped it. I can't stand looking at or touching raw meat. Gag. It all ended up really yummy and we had a great time of just hanging out and laughing. We sure did miss our families, but when you live overseas you get a whole other set of family members!

So tonight we had the "Santa is not real" talk. I felt kind of cruel about it at first, we always did Santa growing up and it's fun. But this past week we had something happen at school that really upset Cerys. Her teacher told the class a story that she led them to believe was true. She was giving them something to write about, they call it the "wow factor" but the story that she told them was traumatizing to Cerys and it just kept going all week! After finally getting a short explanation from one teacher (she has two teachers, they job share- so one teacher does M,W,F and the other does TH, F) we were able to tell Cerys that the story was not true and boy did she have questions. "Why did my teacher lie to me?" Ugh. This was a tough parenting week.

Anyway, tonight we were talking about Santa after watching a Veggie Tales DVD about St. Nicholas. After all that had happened this week we felt we needed to be truthful that Santa is not real. I don't think we have ever said he is real, but when they ask I usually just smile or say "What do you think about that?" I just feel that there are things in life that we will tell our kids that sound unbelievable but are true and I want the girls to believe our word first. I don't know if that makes any sense. So after discussing it Cerys seemed fine and thought it was funny that it was the parents that brought presents. I asked Bailey is she was okay with this news and if she had any questions. She said, "Ya, can we watch TV?" *sigh* That child!

Hope you have a great week! We are in for "blizzards" on Tuesday and Wednesday they say- that should make walking to school fun huh? This is most unusual weather for Wales!
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