Off with the old, on with the new!

As I wrap up the final hours left of 2012, I'll reflect on the last week! We so enjoyed our time with Wayne's parents and we kept  busy with a trip to the museum, several trips to the Quebec church and time spent indoors watching the snow fall outside.

The kids played Farkle with Grandpa and Grandma along with Monopoly and Zanna's newest game, Mousetrap. We made fun memories like an evening of rum and eggnog drinking while watching a silent Charlie Chaplin movie (which is funnier with rum and eggnog).

Here's my little angel and shepherd. They did a great job on Christmas eve with their memorized parts and music singing! We had great attendance at church that evening breaking our record - 124 jammed into our tiny church - praise God! 

For Christmas Eve dinner this year I tried something different - Shepherd's pie. To be fair, we learned in England that real shepherd's pie is made with lamb (duh). So if it's made with beef it should be called cottage pie, but that just doesn't go with my theme, OK? 

I love my Christmas Eve table - Grandma's retro tablecloth dressed up with some flea market finds and a center piece of ornaments.

Christmas Day's table is a bit fancier using my fancy dishes and gold silverware - 

And here we are eating after opening our Christmas crackers! Do we look like we're having fun?!!! What on the menu? Well, let's see..

Our tradition for Christmas dinner is to keep me out of the kitchen as much as possible so it's IKEA Swedish meatballs and gravy! We love it! Once a year and everyone's happy. I try to spruce it up by having some lobster tails on the side with melted butter. Yum! And I'm not even going to show you Jesus' birthday cake for this year. Let's just say, it was good to eat but not the prettiest cake you've ever seen. 

We've continued to get dumped on so the kids have been working on a super cool fort in the front. We've also been sledding and attempted a family outing of ice skating. We realized we're stupid parents. You know the ones - who don't love their children enough to bring helmets for them to wear? You've seen them - they can't even spring for some decent skates for their poor children? One kids got some hand me down "training" skates that strap on to her boots only to have them constantly fall off. The other child has been forced to wear his grandfather's skates from 1975 and is flopping all over the place - with no helmet, may I remind you. Yep, that's us. We lasted 5 minutes and spent just under $7 for this family friendly outing. We will not give up! We went directly to Sports Check for their after Christmas sales and purchased some decent skates for both children. We may even bring helmets next time. 
And on a personal note, I've decided to go with a new look for the new year.  You know, spice things up a bit? What do you think?

OK. Before you say anything, let's just all take a deep breath. The story is this - it's a wig and I got it for a Christmas present from one of our members. What?!! Lutheran pastor's wives don't usually get a wig for Christmas? The gal that got it for me is super fun, super cute and quite frankly, I'm honoured.  The fact that she would think I'd be groovy enough to try something like this is now pressure - where I am going to wear this?!!! "Off to choir, kids, and mommy's going to put on her hair!" or "I need to clean my floor. Maybe it'll be more fun with some hair?" or "I think I'll wear it to my home school support group tonight and see if anyone notices." 
I'm also thinking that the likelihood of ever having a conversation with another pastor's wife that would include something like "Oh, I remember the time I got a wig for Christmas..." is pretty slim. Yep. This'll be a hard one to top! It's really a gorgeous colour and I wish my hair would grow that long and curl in those lovely waves! So if anyone has any suggestions as to the appropriate time and place for me to wear this, or if you have a wig and wanna come over to just hang out in them let me know! Happy New Year!!