Hannukah 2023 started early this year on the 7th of December. Our eight nights of Hannukah were filled with soccer, dance, softball, and basketball making it challenging to light the menorah at a normal hour. Some nights it was after 9:00 p.m. before we lit the menorah and said the blessing, but we did it. In a time with the current Israel Palestine conflict and the horrendous acts of the Hamas, I felt it especially important that we recognize the holiday even at late hours some nights. The girls made out better than normal this year with their Hannukah gifts….though still practical in nature, the clothes and shoes they got this year sparked a lot of excitement and disbelief (in a good way).
We spent one night of Hannukah celebrating with the Goldmans and the Rackisanys and one night celebrating with my parents and Auntie Lauren, who happened to be in town for a work trip.
We all agreed that Christmas seemed to get here very quickly this year. Karolin came to visit a few days before Christmas and the girls enjoyed having her for the holiday.
Christmas Eve we went to the 5:00 VPC service so that we could go to dinner afterwards. We all decided that we had graduated from the 5:00 children’s service and would not be returning to that particular service the following year. The church service seemed to be running late and we had to leave early for our 6:15 dinner reservation missing “Silent Night” and the lighting of the candles, our favorite part of the service. I was excited and scared to go back to PF Changs after our 2019 experience where we had horrible service. Thankfully service was good, food was good, and we were in and out of the restaurant in one hour allowing us to walk up Hillington when we got back home to see the luminaries.
Avery and Harper set out cookies for Santa, cookies that they made with Ms. Pat earlier in the week.
We all slept soundly and until 8:00 am, which was agreed upon by everyone!
The girls can barely fit on the same single stair!
Santa delivered, though unlike other years, much of his gifts were shared gifts including some board games, a waffle maker and a wagon.
The girls all got presents for each other, which were well received. Justin and I got the girls a combination of clothes, shoes, dance apparel (Avery), softball apparel (Emerson) and a little bit of art supplies (Harper). Total mom fail in that I hadn’t realized Harper’s gifts were minimal in comparison to Avery and Emerson’s. Her and I talked about it and she understood…lesson learned for Mom next year! Harper’s big gift was a new IPAD and Avery and Emerson each received the IPhone 15 plus.
Christmas Day we had a great breakfast of lemon scones, French toast, eggs, fruit, bacon, and sausage. We took a nice family walk in the day and had a second big Italian meal in the evening, my parents joining us, consisting of chicken parm, pasta, sausage meatballs, green beans, and homemade crusty bread.
