Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebration. We sure did! We enjoyed our traditional monkey bread--this year with wheat, millet, and barley grains, and also had our special Christmas morning Egg casserole--this year with quinoa. Yum!

Today was a wonderful day. We opened gifts together, explored our new presents, shared them, and played together. I love it that the girls are old enough to play games with us now--one of my favorite traditions during the holidays. We played Old Maid in the form of National Geographic animals so it was "Old Ellie" the elephant. We also played Kubb--which is a game we originally learned from Maria, the girls' Swedish aunt. While we were shopping a few days ago, we found it at a store, so Claire got it for Rhett. He was SO excited!

But I think my favorite part of the celebration was last night when we did our family gift exchange--which Claire titled "gifting." Last Saturday, we all drew names. Here is who we got:
Rhett got Basil.
I got Summer.
Summer got Pyper.
Claire got Rhett.
Pyper got me.
Basil got Claire.

Then with the money the girls got for trading in their Halloween candy at the dentist (they each got a dollar), we went to the dollar store and shopped for each other. We walked around together for a few minutes, talking about buying something that you thought the person would actually want, instead of what you would want. And then we split up. I took Summer and Claire, and Rhett took Pip and Basil.

What a beautiful experience to watch my little girls actually consider what their people would want. Summer found some dress up clothes--a wand, some fairy wings, and a princess crown--because she knew Pip would love it. (Pyper is ALWAYS dressing up.) And Claire got a bag of chips for Rhett. (His nightly snack.) I picked out a puzzle that Summer could color and passed it off to Rhett sneakily so Summer wouldn't notice. Then we snuck around the store until Rhett and the younger two had checked out. It was so much fun!

Last night, we gave each other our gifts. What a joyful evening! Everyone was excited to get the gifts, but they were even MORE excited to give them! (How exciting is that?!?)

On a side note, all week we talked about not telling other people what they are getting. It was so hard for the girls to keep it all a secret. Rhett and I would both tease, "Pyper, tell me what you got me . . ." Pip would say, "No!" Then "Pyper, I really need you to tell me." Pip would respond, "No!" or "Claire, what did you get me?" Claire: "I'm not telling." Rhett: "I just need to know right now. I won't tell anyone." Claire: "No way!" The girls even picked up on it and began teasing us too. Finally, yesterday, Pyper said, "Mom, will you tell me what my present is?" I said, "No way, Pip." She responded, "Will you tell me after I open it?" I said, "Sure." She said, "Thanks mom." :)  Love it.

Here's the list of what each person got for the other:
Rhett got little bathtub rubber duckies for Basil.
I got the color-able puzzle for Summer.
Summer got the dress-ups for Pyper.
Claire got the bag of chips--and Kubb (we made an exception) for Rhett
Pyper got some decorative rocks for me.
Basil got a glow in the dark kitty picture for Claire to color. (Yes, she actually picked it out. Rhett said they were going down an isle, and Basil reached out and grabbed it. Rhett said, "Basil, you want to get this for Claire?" She said, "Mmm-hmmm." So they did.)

It was so fun to watch each girl just bursting with excitement as they handed their gift to the person they had drawn. And the receiver, realizing the thoughtfulness of the gift, being so excited as well. There was so much hugging going on! And cheering! It was hilarious. I know these things are just dollar store "junk" that will be treasured for a while and then eventually passed on to a new life, but I loved watching it all--seeing that the girls caught a small glimpse of the joys of giving. It was my favorite part of the holiday.