Not a Silent Night

But a fun night!! I love to hear my kids play Christmas Carols together on their violins. It really isn't so much fun if they only do it for me. So I invited a few families over on Sunday night for a Caroling party. It was exceedingly fun. Morgan, Roz, and Missie played violins and we all sang. My friend, Heather, mentioned that people don't really do that anymore, they just listen to music. Well, we sang! Morgie printed up copies of the words. Next was chime-time!! I got the chimes out and we went through 3 songs with those. The kids were mostly younger (rather than older) and they did such a good job. The songs were recognizable. The chimes are a really kid-pleaser, too. They had the best time. It is pretty easy to control them, too. They were all crowing me with excitement and when I said to sit down, "plop," everyone of them sat down. Last, we sang "Rudolf" and everyone just banged on the chimes. Most all the other songs were religious and wonderful!! We had lots of treats to eat. I made hot wassail which is tres delicious. So, it was a fun night. This morning I was going around taking pictures of my favorite Christmas decorations to intrigue the masses that attend my blog. After having lots of little hands investigating thing, I had a few surprises. This nested nativity is a lot of fun. I painted it when we lived in Chicago. I did this after I swore I'd never do another nativity again as the first one took forever. I love the camel, that its butt is on the back of its face. He is slightly disjointed after last night, but he'll recover.Next is my cookie cutter nativity. I saw this somewhere when we lived in Cincinnati and so I got the pattern and made it. I think it is very adorable, except I noticed this thing on the roof of the stable. Upon close look, I noticed it is some sort of bug!!! It is icky and I don't know what to do other than wait until Travis gets home to take care of it. Imagine if it was scale size like the figures in the stable. That would be one huge bug!!I took this picture and wondered what was missing. Well, according to this little reenactment, Baby Jesus just came into being without parents at all. Maybe that is why the angel is so upset on the roof. We'll have to search the house for Mary and Joseph... This is the first nativity I painted and it nearly drove me nuts. That was back when I wasn't as patient as I am today. I love this nativity anyway. Last, but not least, I wanted to include my advent tree. The girls still love to attend to this tree I painted. I even painted all the ornaments. On Christmas Eve, the star goes on the top nail and the tree is complete. Tomorrow I'll have a different collection to showcase. I hope you can sleep tonight with the anticipation!