New Year's Eve 2020

 We had no plans for New Year's Eve, but the day before I decided we should try to make it fun. We took out our usual NYE garland that we hang with games to play with the Lamy-Petersons and filled it with activities that the four of us could do on our own. It turned out to be a fun night, the activities stretched the perfect length of time (with just 25 minutes left over to sneak in an episode of Modern Family before the ball dropped) and we welcomed 2021 together:

Benji was surprisingly super engaged with this collage making

Ruth's collage

Kevin's collage

Abby's collage

Benji's collage

We made these cool New Year's Eve fortune tellers

Happy New Year!

Throw Throw Burrito

 The kids got this for Christmas and Benji was desperate to play it. The weather warmed up over the weekend and we were able to get outside for a match:

Grandpa Steve's Marble Run

 Grandpa Steve sent this as a present to be opened on Christmas Eve. His stated intent was for us to build it that night, although I don't think he knew quite what a big project it would be. We started it the day after Christmas and are still plugging away:

December 26th

December 28th

Christmas Day 2020

 It was a novel experience to wake up in our own house on Christmas morning. We started with brunch before moving on to presents. Benji enjoyed playing Santa and handing all of the gifts out from under the tree. We saved the stockings for the afternoon to spread out the joy:

Benji claims he was traumatized by receiving this lump of coal in his stocking

Christmas Eve 2020

We had a quiet Christmas Eve at home this year.  Festivities started mid-day with an all-family Paquette zoom call:

In the afternoon, we finished up the gingerbread houses we began the day before (by baking the gingerbread and starting to stick it together):

We had a little time left in the afternoon, so I broke out these make-your-own headband kits I bought on clearance last January:

We finished up just in time for our zoom with Grandma and Pop-pop to open gifts and have Pop-pop read Twas the Night Before Christmas:

The centerpiece of our evening was celebrating the Icelandic tradition of book flood. Everyone got a gift of a new book, and we spent the rest of the night reading by the fire and eating chocolate:

The refreshments included a hot cocoa bar with hot chocolate made from scratch

Study Session

 I had one last pre-break photo. For the whole week before break, every time Benji had down time he picked up Abby's PSAT book to read (he finished it right at the start of break). He was fascinated by it for some reason: