Happy Hanukkah!

Winter has arrived. Although I am Jewish, I am only too happy to celebrate the holiday season in any way possible.  As soon as Thanksgiving is over, I start my holiday shopping, wrapping, and baking. I have been watching as many cheesy Christmas movies as I can on Netflix (Ooh they are trite but so pleasurable...). I am playing Christmas music on Pandora and in the car, and Eric can't understand how a Jew can be so into Christmas, but I am.

I don't even mind that it has snowed 3 times in 1 week. We are maximizing our winter fun with sledding, ice skating, hot cocoa, and outdoor play.  In between all of our outdoor activities, I have managed to order, address and send all our holiday cards; visit Asher's class to make holiday cards for the homeless; visit Benjamin's class to talk about Hanukkah; wrap every gift I purchased; bake 3 kinds of cookies, 1 cake, and banana bread; and eat latkes 3 nights in a row. Whew!

Sledding with my boys

Snow angel

The snowflakes were picture-perfect

Charlotte eating snow

After Snow #1 we went to our friends' house for dinner. While the lasagna was baking, we sent the kids outside to play in the snow, and they played for an entire hour!

The following day we took the kids to see the Christmas trains at the Morris Arboretum. I think I was he most interested of anyone- they had miniatures of famous Philadelphia buildings, and after the storm, they were covered in snow and looked perfectly picturesque.

Charlotte looking at the trains

The following weekend, after I organized and ran the bake sale at Charlotte's school on Friday, we had latkes and dinner with my parents and aunt and uncle and exchanged gifts. Then, on Saturday, we took the kids into the city to visit the Christmas village and go ice skating.  We ate all kinds of warm and gooey carbs in the village to prepare for the work of ice skating.

Charlotte has City Hall spouting out her head

Glass ornaments at the ornament stall

Eric was quite skeptical about ice skating, but the kids were all excited.  Benjamin took right to it and started skate-stomping around the rink. He was brave, and proud of himself.  It was wonderful to see him feeling confident, since he has seemed more quiet in the past year or so.  Eric and I have good balance, but we were pretty sore the following day!

Charlotte is mad that I wouldn't pay $10 for penguin she could push around the rink

At City Hall

We drove home from skating to meet our friends at the bowling alley. Charlotte used the guide ramp, but bowled over 100, all by herself! Charlotte had wanted bowling with friends as a little pre-birthday celebration, since her party won't be for another few weeks.  After bowling we had dinner at our friends' house, and the kids exchanged gifts after we lit the menorah.

Happy Hanukkah!

On Sunday we had one more party to attend- the cantor at our synagogue lives nearby and his daughter is in class with Asher; he invited us to a Hanukkah party at his house.  As we were getting ready to go, Santa came down the street on a fire truck, handing out candy canes. We have lived on this street for 11 years and this was the first time we actually got to see him! Our neighbors were with us, exchanging cards and holiday goodies.

The packed full weekend led into a short and busy pre-holiday week, which I will have to write about in other posts- both Charlotte's 5th birthday and Christmas.