A few weeks ago our neighbors invited us over to share in their celebration of Hanukkah. We invited them to our Christmas day dinner, but since they were going to be out of town, we had them tonight instead to help us celebrate Christmas a bit early.
I made a roast and they brought a dessert of banana cream pie. My husband and I talked about where to have the dinner and decided to use the main dining room because it would seat all eight of us. Only hold on, the chairs have light cream upholstery...and we have toddlers. My husband covered the chairs with large towels and we hoped the dog would get whatever hit the rug.
Our neighbors arrived and we had a nice dinner together with their two children (twelve and fourteen) and our two wildcards (three and two). They like our children and we like their children and all four children like each other so it was a relaxed meal punctuated by funny things my kids were saying and doing.
In far too short a time my children were done sitting still, so before dessert I told all four children I had a small present for them if they would head to the living room. To back up, at their Hanukkah celebration, they got my children a toy each. Our plan was that we would get their children something at our early Christmas celebration together.
Instead of a single bigger gift, we decided to get them stockings full of stuff. My children also had stockings filled for the night so they could participate too. You know how you never know if something's going to work or not? I hoped it would work, I hoped I had age-appropriate gadgets, candy and silly things; but I wasn't sure.
But they had a great time pulling out thing after thing from their stockings. Their mother told me they'd never had a stocking before and I told them stockings were my favorite thing to do because you could put lots of little fun things in them.
My children had a good time with their stockings too. I think everyone got something fun. The best part to me was watching everyone exclaiming as they pulled out something they liked from their stocking.
As an aside, today is the three-year anniversary of the date we moved in to our new house. Three busy, tiring, fast-moving, baby-filled years of fun.
The Big Boy Update: "I want the penguin!" I didn't put out the stockings until right before our neighbors arrived and it's a good thing, because they were held up on the mantle by "hooks" and you know how my son feels about hooks. He kept trying to take the stockings down and hook them on other locations. Also, he only wanted the penguin one (they have stuffed animal heads at the top) but his was the reindeer. I showed him one of the toys inside his and he changed his mind after that.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Fuzzy sock boots. My neighbors got my children cool socks tonight. My daughter's are these outrageously fuzzy socks that come up almost to her knees. But they have treads on the bottom and she put them on, pulled them up, walked around, laughed, took them off and then repeated the process until bedtime.
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