With love from all of us here at the Little Cottage!

I have been so BUSY, my friends!  I love, love, LOVE this time of the year!  We start full throttle at Thanksgiving, and don’t stop until January 2, which is my birthday!  Of course, by that time, everyone is too partied out to muster up much more than a kiss and a ‘Happy Birthday!’…including ME….so it’s entirely Okay!  Some people have birthday parties, I have birthday NAPS.

Don’t judge.

Since Thanksgiving, which was by all accounts, a gastronomical challenge, we have cut the Christmas tree for ourselves, and one for Grandma Jane,

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and wrapped presents,

and made paper ‘Advent Chains,’

(There is one for everyone, complete with love notes written by all of us, inside each link, to be opened every day in December.)

and lit our outside tree with a gazillion non-eco-friendly light bulbs,

and had only a couple melt downs in between.  (Okay, that was just me….)

We have three different ‘themes’ for our Christmas tree, because I’m ridiculously fickle, and rarely can make up my mind. They are: 1) ‘Old World’, with old mercury glass ornaments and burgundy and gold and rich, dark evergreen satin ribbon, 2.) ‘Montana’, with moose, pine cones, lanterns, and all kinds of animal glass ornaments. and 3.) ‘Sugar Plums and Bon-Bons’.   Every year the theme revolves, and this year, it is the Sugar Plum tree!

What, pray tell, is a Sugar Plum Tree?  It’s Lindt Bon-Bons,

and Lifesavers,

and Crazy Bitter Dark Chocolate for My Captain.

It’s also glass ornaments of sweets that we could not otherwise hang on the tree for a month,

(I love this one!  Varmint picked it out years ago.)

And it wouldn’t be right without our Hershey Kisses…

Fully edible Gingerbread men will be put on next week. In the meantime, however, we have some felt wanna-be’s from when Varmint and Critter were wee ones.

Some ornaments go on all three different themed trees.  These are the “OH!”, and the “I remember this!”, and the “Honey, get me some tissues to wipe my eyes, will you?” ornaments.

Like Critter and Varmint’s Preschool angels.

And my dear friend Liz’s daughter, Melissa, as one of the world’s cutest snowmen.  She’s 11 years old now…. (insert sniffle).

And since I have yet to figure out what would be the best topper for this kind of Christmas tree, I simply plunk down a peppermint striped bow.  Eventually I’ll think of something better.  I’m certainly open to suggestions!

And I hope you know that I’m detail-oriented enough to be sure that most of the wrapping paper is also Bon-Bon themed!

Good enough to eat!

But Mama! Where is Jesus??!  Where do you pay homage to the One whose celebration this is all about?

Oh PLEASE!  As if I could forget the most important part of this season.   But, you know me, I have to bow to it in my own, God-given style.

Some people think our lack of gravity about the whole season is disrespectful.  I disagree.  We’re all about joy and grace in this Little Cottage, not mockery.   We’ve got too much love and laughter going on to be contemptuous!  We save THAT little nugget for the Leprechaun on St. Patrick’s day….who TO THIS DAY eludes me.

The little green bastard……

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He’s hard as nails.

He’s smart as a whip.

He’s strong as an ox.

He’s as courageous as any hero could be.

He’s soft and squishy on the inside.

Don’t tell anyone, though.  It’ll be our little secret.

One of the original rides at Hershey Park is called the Scrambler.  I love the Scrambler.  I love the way it makes me feel like a breakfast egg.  I love the way it makes me feel powerless, at the whim of the mechanic.  I love the way it gets my blood racing.

Its primary objective is to spin you so fast that centrifugal force sends everyone in the center of the bucket outwards to squash the outer passenger….all riders helpless as physics has its merry way with them!  But there is also an additional jerking, sudden change of angular direction throughout the ride, so you literally don’t know if you are coming or going.

I like to go on this ride FIRST when we get to Hershey Park.   You know, right after breakfast.  It makes my belly jiggle with laughter, and the blood rush to my head.  And, it gives me great joy to see everyone else’s bellies jiggle and blood rushing.

I’m not saying it gives them great joy……nausea and vertigo, maybe, but not joy.

For some reason I cannot get My Captain to ever get on the ding dang thing with us.  Boggles the mind, really.

We spent Thanksgiving Weekend like any other, normal, unexceptional, average, typical, ordinary family.

We taught Varmint and Critter the finer aspects of Poker.

Using Hershey’s Chocolate Bliss as poker chips, of course.

My Captain started with the basic rules.

From there he covered the ins-and-outs of your basic ‘Poker Face’.  This is something Critter needs to work on extensively.

After that he touched on the finer parts of shamming, bamboozling, shady dealing, double-dealing, hustling, racketeering, more hustling, and finally, shell games.

Look, we figure if we don’t give them the tools now, they’ll be suckers for the rest of their lives.  With Varmint, we hope to grow her defenses against knaves.  With Critter, we hope he doesn’t take these lessons in a vocational sort of way.

One other thing My Captain needs to highlight in his lesson books…..

Good Sportsmanship.

( Don’t you just love Varmint’s face in this picture?  Priceless!!!)