Holiday Season

The holidays swirled by in the usual whirlwind of gifts, family, food, decorating, and holiday fun sprinkled with nostalgia, missing those who are no longer with us, and wishing we had more time and money...

Faith's 6th birthday was December 9th and we celebrated by going to the American Girl strore at the Natick Collection. Faith LOVES it there and so does Nana Nancy who came with us. Faith picked the girl of the year, Lainey, as her birthday gift and we had a fancy lunch, then home for cake.

We lit the Menorrah candles most nights of Hanukkah, Ben and I still remember the Hebrew prayer by heart even though it is our only Jewish experience. I love the tradition and the celelbration of the season of miracles. We did not do Hanukkah presents; that isn't part of our celebration of lights but we did read some books.

A couple days after Faith's birthday I picked her up from day care and she had mustered the courage to ask if we could go get her ears pierced, "right NOW!?" So, off we went to Hanover Mall for the deed. The girls at Piercing Pagoda were wonderful and did both ears at the same time talking her through it all. Faith was So brave and thrilled with herself. We went to Friendlies after and she showed off her new bling to everyone who would listen!

Nana Nancy sent us a gorgeous and yummy gingerbread house made for us by Ginger Betty. We grazed on this yumminess for weeks!


Our church holiday pagent was delightful and fun. Faith played a hula dancer (Santa was considering skipping Christmas and going to Hawaii) and I sang with the adult choir. I have formed some wonderful friendships and connected to a strong sense of community at Channing. I am grateful for the people there...

One of this season's highlights was visiting Edaville Railroad with Faith and some of the family. It was magical to Faith and wonderful to experience it with her. I hadn't been since I was very young... it's so much bigger and fancier than it was back then; there were lots of memories for me.

The day after Christmas we had a big snowstorm here. Faith and I made the most of it by having a firepit under the car port. It was cozy between snow angels and shoveling; everything so quiet and freshly covered.