Cookie Exchange

Our annual cookie exchange party. This year, I remembered to get a picture before too much wine was consumed:

Posts will return in the New Year!

Tzitzit Program

Just before break, Abby's Sunday school class had a program on tzitzit, the little fringes on the edges of the tallit, or prayer shawl:

Reading the prayer

Counting the knots

Poetry Slam

Abby's English teacher hosted a holiday poetry slam and each student read a poem. Here is Abby's:

Also, if it looks like Abby is wearing this sweatshirt every day, it is because she is. It is her new city schools art program sweatshirt and she loves it so much she has worn it every day for a week.

Wrap for a Cause

Girl Scouts wrapping gifts at Barnes and Noble:

Holiday Baking

Cookie butter truffles

The Secret Garden

Our friend Anya Rothman was cast as the lead of this production at the Shakespeare Theater in DC. She played the role for which Daisy Eagan won the Tony 25 years ago. Daisy Eagan was also in the play as one of the older characters now. Anya was great, and we had a chance to visit with her after the show:

Julia's 13th Birthday

Hard to believe she is a teenager now. She had a non-sleepover party:

Spoons

Tape ball

Trading

So many of the girls had phones, I could not squeeze in for a picture of Jules with her cake

The girls also took part in a photo scavenger hunt. A couple of the pics from Abby's team:

Everyone reading

Everyone wearing tin foil hats

Toys for Tots

Each year we try to do a volunteer project with our scout troop, as well as a family service project. This year we combined the two and spent a couple of hours in the old library building sorting toys for Toys for Tots. We also got to "shop" for the families by picking out toys for different age groups:

Charlottesville Symphony Family Holiday Concert

This year, we figured we would try something new and took the kids to this concert instead of some of the other things we usually see (we are skipping glee club, Christmas Carol, and the Frontier Culture Museum lantern tour this year).  They both loved it! (at least until the University Signers joined in with some latin chorale music):

Waldorf Christmas Fair 2016

We go each year, mostly for their great wreath-making room:

Our finished wreath - Benji was a big help gathering the branches and cutting berries

"Take a picture of me in these trees!"

We let him decorate one cookie and then we headed home (where Abby was waiting)

Visiting Santa 2016

Benji was proactive this year about asking to see Santa, so I signed him up for the Junior League's Cookies with Santa event. Santa read the kids "Twas the Night Before Christmas," then they took some pictures and decorated cookies:

He offered one of his cookies to Mommy

Trimming the Tree 2016

He was so excited for tree trimming, he wore the hat all afternoon and kept bursting into song

He is also obsessed with the mistletoe

Our traditional tree trimming snack-dinner

Surveying the ornaments

Posing with the finished tree

Abby was tall enough this year to put on the tree topper herself (on the bottom step of the step stool)

Picking out the Tree

We tried out the market at Grelen Farm this year, and it was a beautiful setting to buy a tree:

Mike Super

We saw this nationally known magician at The Paramount last week (he was the winner of Phenomenon on NBC and a finalist on America's Got Talent).  It was also the theater's 85th anniversary, so as a bonus, we got cake:

Fun with the Kishores

Abby and Mira painting

Benji and Mira making fairy houses, an activity Mira dubbed "not boring"

Kevin playing with Kiran

A Charlie Brown Christmas

A fun live version of the Christmas special, and we got to meet the cast after the show: