Hanukkah & Stockings Dinner

Tonight we're going to our neighbor's house to celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas.   Every year the adults make stockings for the other family's children and then my family enjoys a traditional dinner of potato latkes and matza ball soup.  There are some things that are different this year surrounding the stockings which I'm interested to see how will play out.

Our neighbor's children are older now and the slime, trinkets and crazy things from the China site I order from are a little too young for our now much more mature sitter children.   I have a small iTunes card for each of them, but that doesn't go far when it comes to filling stocking space.   There is candy, of which I have a varied collection, including some odd things (my specialty) as well as Christmas themed.    But I needed more.

Stephen, their father, laughed and suggested I put mini bottles of alcohol in their stockings—that they'd love that.   When their son coincidentally suggested the same thing upon me mentioning my stocking stuffing quandary, it was an easy decision.

I went to the liquor store on the twenty-third of December, a foolish time to go as the parking lot was full and people were parking on the streets.   There were three employees there just stocking the shelves, inventory was being depleted so quickly, and all the check out lanes were backed up to the back of the store.

So when I got to the front (after a surprisingly quickly moving line) I asked if he could pick out bottles for me.   I figured that would be much quicker and he would have a good idea of what choices to make.   Back home, I had plenty to fill both stockings to the top.

The thing I'm wondering about this year is will my son notice much of the candy and some of the trinkets in their stockings were also in his and his sisters.   She wouldn't know because she can't see it, but this could be additional data and could finalize his belief that Santa isn't real.

We'll know in a few hours.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been resisting on the reading hour he has to do each day.   Today, however, he jumped right in without much ado.   Perhaps his book is getting interesting.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter told me this morning, "I need a bigger bowl to put all my candy in."   This surprised me because she's been sneakily eating it around the clock.   She wanted cake for breakfast as well.   She loves sweets.