Luminaries

It's late and I'm just getting to this now.  My best friend's children were over tonight discussing how we're going to do our neighborhood annual luminaries event, something she and I have coordinated for the past four years.  

This year we decided to have the children do more of the work and tonight was our brainstorming session.   How would we make the event a success?  My son suggested initially bullying people into buying luminaries but he was outvoted by the five girls and then agreed it would be a bad idea.  

We are now having a cookie swap to hand out the materials, something all the children are going to advertise with a video posted on Facebook and a flyer with a handmade cookie we'll put on every door this coming weekend.   The luminary light up night will coincide with the evening Santa and Mrs. Clause will be visiting the clubhouse for families interested in seeing him.  

The children picked a charity to have the funds raised go towards and are enthusiastic about the process.  My children are the youngest of the group, but they want to participate too and will be going around the neighborhood with the older girls to hand out cookies and flyers.

There will be a lot to do but I think they'll get a better feel for what it takes to raise money for a cause going through the process.   When I told them we raised a thousand dollars last year they got excited about helping.   Hopefully, with the children doing a lot more by way of advertising the events, we'll get a lot of participation from the neighborhood.   It's always been lovely seeing the edges of the streets all lit up with luminaries in the crisp December night.

What My Son Said:  My best friend's dog, Remy, was over with the children tonight.  Remy is getting neutered tomorrow and it's about time because all he wanted to do tonight was mount Matisse, who was good-natured about the whole thing.   My son asked partway through, "are you having his sex machine removed tomorrow?"

What My Daughter Did:  My daughter wanted to help with the luminary project but ran out of energy and fell asleep on the ottoman before we finished brainstorming.  She is most excited about the cookie making part of the project so once we were done talking about that she wandered off, got her pajamas on with her father's help getting drops and teeth brushed and then fell asleep with the loud ruckus of children all around her.