Monday, December 5, 2016

Ramble

I feel like we're doing pretty good at advent, even though we're barely making it at life: The tree (fake and small) is up and decorated, my advent candles are up and we light them and sing before dinner every night, there are millions of nativity scenes on every available surface, and an advent calendar has been purchased and after dinner we're very excited to open a new window.

And Chester put out a shoe tonight, in which I've placed a piece of candy. (We told him all about St. Nicholas in preparation for the feast.)

And then on fb, I stumbled upon a picture of loads of shoes (I guess the parents get candy as well as the kids, and it seems one shoe is not sufficient--I should have used two) loaded with candy and oranges and children's books scattered around. And cookies were baked for St. Nick. Now I feel like an advent failure.

In my defense, I'm planning to bake cookies on Saturday, which I suspect will really happen since we're going to some sort of cookie party on Sunday. And I don't give Chester tons of candy, so I think one shoe is sufficient. And I don't understand why adults would need to get candy from St. Nick because they can easily get it from the cabinets. And half the time Chester is obsessed with oranges and half the time I have to stuff them down his throat, so that wouldn't be a really exciting food for him. (At this moment, on the other hand, he can't get enough of raspberries--if I put our three remaining raspberries in his shoe he would be thrilled but mama couldn't handle the mess.)

My apologies for this sleep-deprived ramble. As I mentioned, we're barely making it at life.

P.S. Advent is the best ever with a kid. He understands basically everything, so explaining it all to him is just wonderful. He tells everyone he meets right now that the three kings followed the star to find Jesus.

P.P.S. Last night we played an improvised version of hide-and-go-seek that involves wise men searching for the star. The kid loved it, and I even managed to surprise the husband.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Simply lovely...

Hannah said...

We had every intention of doing the whole "leave your shoe out" last night but didn't get to it. (Evenings are so short...) but we figured St. Nick can just come during naptime, right?? Except for the days when your kids decide not to nap. Sigh. We will mash something together. One piece of candy is plenty. We plan on letting them have a piece of chocolate in their shoe...one shoe...and a bowl of raspberries...not in their shoe.

Besides...aren't all photos on Facebook airbrushed and Photoshoped?? I think you are doing a great job.

Emily Hale said...

Yes--kids certainly don't know if you're getting the day right or not!

I love that our kids are all on raspberry kicks!

The poor kid was trying to look in the shoe later to see if there was more candy in there:)

Frankincense said...

Trader Joe's had little bags of chocolate coins last week, so I bought two. Yay me, so on top of it! Then last night when I went to put them in the shoes (two shoes because there are two children), I realized each little bag had about twenty coins. Like heck I'm giving my kids that much chocolate! So I took most of it out and have been eating it myself, out of the cupboard.

Emily Hale said...

:) I miss Trader Joe's!!!
Glad to know you only used one shoe. Felt like I must have gotten that part wrong. Can't believe you have two kids who wear shoes!! It's been too long!

Hopkins said...

I'm not sure where the orange thing cane from, but mom combined the two and gave us chocolate oranges. But just 1. And no shoe; it was on the kitchen table at breakfast. The st. Nicks presents I saw this year seemed waaaaaay over the top. I like the coins though because that was how the whole legend of St Nicholas began.

Emily Hale said...

Ah--I didn't put the coins thing together. That's perfect! Cool--chocolate orange--I didn't know there was such a thing.