Cub Scouts Doing Good

Each year, Benji's pack assembles gift bags for men living in the homeless shelter. They worked on the bags this past Sunday, and then heard a cub scout themed version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas":

Decorating the bags

Packmaster Scott reading the story

Chanukah Sunday School

As always, Sunday school was a special occasion for the Sunday during Hanukkah. We had two assemblies, the second featuring everyone's homemade Chanukia. Benji's class also finished their big project for the semester (a comic book):

Benji and Alex joking around while finishing their comics

This year's Payne-Paquette chanukia

One Night in Herndon

We drove up on Friday for Julia's 14th birthday party. It wa sa quick trip because Abby wanted to be back for Elisabeth's birthday party Saturday at lunch time:

Benji enjoyed playing minecraft with Sophia during the party

The girls did an escape room

Victory shot - they made it out with a few minutes to spare

Back to the house for cake

The littles enjoyed joining for this part

Happy 14th, Julia!

Hanukkah, night 5

More candle lighting:

Paper Snowflakes

The advent calendar told us to make them, so we did:

Benji's 4th Grade Concert

As per tradition, the 4th graders had the holiday concert and performed it twice - once for their classmates during the day and once in the evening for the parents:

Benji was chosen to play the xylophone, which was very exciting for him

Benji got to give the intro to the Hanukkah song

Chanukah 2017

We had latke dinner for the first night with Gammy:

Benji was very excited to finally receive his Echo

Abby got her own copy of Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, a book she took out of the library 9 times before finally reading and has been obsessed with since

East, Drink, and Be Merry

We had a girls night at Muse and made these cool signs:

Caroling

We were invited to go caroling with some of our neighbors this year, so on Friday night we headed out to be social. It was chilly, so we all bundled up:

Roasting smores

Tabitha kept offering Benji her marshmallow

Benji and Tabitha singing together

Man v. Machine

Dylan gifted Benji this pocket Simon game and he has been quite taken with it:

Yuletime Date

We had holiday treats at Starbucks:

Trimming the Tree 2017

Tree-trimming treats

Reindeer elfs

We tried for a group shot, with mediocre results

 

More Holiday Merriment

On Saturday morning, I headed out for the Waldorf School Christmas fair first thing. For the first time, the kids opted not to come, but I still wanted to make a wreath, which came out lovely:

After lunch, we headed out to Montpelier for their holiday open house. None of us have been there since the renovation to take it back to the Madison's time there. It was a lovely afternoon:

Benji insisted he pretend to be reading over James' shoulder

Meeting the president. Once Abby told him her last name, he insisted on conversing in French

Back at the visitor's center, there was cider and cookies and a chance to see Santa (Benji wanted to tell Santa what to get him and both indulged me with a picture):

In the evening, Abby and I went to see Benji in his first performance of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, while Kevin (who will see him next week) stayed home to put up the outdoor decorations and put lights on the tree:

Benji, with the other Oompas

Let the Christmas Season Begin

As Friday was (finally) December 1st, we jumped into holiday activities, starting with picking out our tree. We got it from the Boy Scout lot this year:

A tree fell in front of Benji, so he was "trapped" in this spot for a while

Abby thought it was cold (but notice she has no coat)

In the evening, we went to the Glee Club annual holiday concert at Old Cabell Hall:

Sitting in the balcony

Aerial view of the singers

Standing up for our part in the 12 Days of Christmas