A Covid Christmas

The province wide lockdown starts tonight at midnight. The direction from the province is to only celebrate Christmas with those in your own household. If you live alone you can chose one other household to associate with.

No McCartney family Christmas this year. And Mom and CJ are together.

Andrew came over in the afternoon and hung out. Ken cooked up a delicious turkey dinner. I helped a little in the kitchen.

The girls had a great day. They had lots of fun gifts under the tree and watching them open their gifts was awesome. We are very blessed.

The girls let Ken and I watch some tv together - undisturbed, so that was fun. We chatted a little with Ben and Suzanne - and other family members in the Bates Household. It was just a lovely relaxing day with a really yummy dinner and a fun visit with Andrew. After dinner we played Cards Against Humanity - family edition and then we said bye to Uncle Andrew and goodnight to Christmas.

I'm grateful for Christmas. I'm grateful for family time and for gift giving and for the gift of my Savior. 

Christmas Eve

Kate was given a gingerbread house by her soon to be YW's leader. I suggested to Alice and Fiona that we decorate gingerbread men that we make, because Fiona had also decorated a little house at school. But then when it came right down to it, no one was really into it! SO as a compromise I said we could make and decorate sugar cookies. But then the only one that really wanted to do it was Fiona. Alice did cut out some of the cookies, but it was just me and Fiona that did the decorating.

Oh and Debbie got us Christmas crackers with a photo booth kit. I need to take pictures of Kate and Alice too!

We don't have any Christmas Eve traditions. When we lived in Tottenham I loved the tradition of going to see the live nativity at Fairy Lake in Newmarket, but that was disrupted by weather a couple of times - and then we moved! And of course right now during Covid there are no live nativity plays happening. 

When I was a kid we would dress up and act out the nativity every year on Christmas Eve. I don't feel like we have enough people as a family of five, but maybe we do? 

This year Fiona really wanted to open the extra Christmas crackers that have been in the basement for ages. Over the years we've had extra crackers - someone bought an extra package, we bought them on sale. As of right now, we are cracker free - lol except for the ones for tomorrow! (No more temptation to open extra crackers in the storage room!) Ken made homemade poutine for dinner which was yummy! We watched the church nativity video. I liked that. And we also watched different leaders of the church reading Luke 2 in different languages. 

I did a few more deliveries for the giving tree today, and wrapped a few things, but for the most part it was a pretty relaxing day!

Christmas Fun

It's Wednesday today and it feels like a bit of a whirlwind so far! I spent a few hours today and yesterday delivering Christmas cheer to families in our ward - part of my new responsibilities as Relief Society President. 

On Monday, Alice and Fiona decided to have twin day.

And Kate and I went to deliver a present to her friend Sophia. Sophia used to live around the corner, and was a really close friend of Kate's last year. They aren't in the same class or cohort so they hardly ever see each other this year. They do still chat online so that's something. Hopefully her family will be able to move back to the area soon.

On Tuesday the girls put together the kits we bought at Michaels. They were a bit intense and took way longer than the package said they would. I'm not sure that Kate would say that the kit was worth it. We joked (sort of joked...) that it took two and a half hours and her soul. She might be able to laugh about it now?

I only ever got a picture of Alice's. I should go take pictures of the other ones!

Alice was playing with her plasticine tonight and asked me what she should make. I asked for a nativity and she made me the cutest little nativity!

We played Cards Against Humanity - Family Edition tonight. This was my favourite.

Wednesday (today) Ken took the day off and we went to see Polar Lights. One of the parking garages at the airport was converted into a light show. You stay in your car and drive through. It was pretty. It was about 20-25 minutes to drive through the lights.

The drive back and forth was longer than the show, but I think it was still worth it! The lights were really cool and the girls got a kick out of it. We chatted with Santa and the Grinch. It's too bad I didn't take a pic of the Grinch, or of Kate squishing Alice to yell out the window "You're my hero!"

I wanted more Christmas lights, so later on after dinner we drove downtown to see the lights at Nathan Phillip's Square, and to see the Christmas windows at the Bay. We don't make it downtown every year but it always makes me so happy when we do make it there! I loved going to see the windows as a kid.

This pic is of Santa's list - I think the computer is checking it twice. I can't remember who noticed it first, but Ruthie and Ted - those names together on the list - we all liked that a lot!

Alice and Fiona were really excited by the Nativity in front of Old City Hall.