Christmas crafts

Last Friday, Bruce's dad kept Spencer and Allison while I spent the afternoon in Clay's classroom, helping the kids with Christmas crafts. In the long run, I doubt I was actually much help. Early on, Clay decided that I should be with him the whole time, instead of sticking with one craft while all the kids rotated stations. And since the only reason I volunteer time at school is for my kids, that's what I did.

Here's a picture of the first craft we worked on.



I'm not sure whose idea this one was, but it was awful. Way too much glue and nothing else really creative to it. It ended up being a big wreath, but nobody thought ahead as to how it would be moved while it dried and the kids worked on other crafts at their desks. Clay enjoyed it anyway.

Last night was our church's youth Christmas presentation with puppets and a drama. It was great! The kids enjoyed the show as well. Bruce stayed home to catch up on school work before we leave on vacation.

Clay sat next to Ben, our new youth pastor's son, who Clay has started calling his "best friend." We brought Ben home with us after church yesterday so they could play, and then took him home a couple hours before evening services. I'm happy for Clay. His other buddies from church are in the same class at school, and he has felt a little left out this year.

Ben and Clay will also be on the same Upwards basketball team this year. Practice starts this Thursday, and Ben's dad is coaching. Clay is excited about Ben's daddy being coach, too.

Back to last night's drama. Spencer and Allison really like one of the young teenagers at our church, Gabe. They just think he's better than peanut butter, probably largely because he always makes time to talk to them.

Gabe played a grouchy old man in the drama. He would say lines like: "Christmas?! Who needs Christmas? I don't even believe in Christmas. It's just a bunch of people giving gifts I don't want or need and then telling me 'It's the thought that counts.' Well, if it's the thought that counts, I wish they'd quit thinking of me."

All that talk disturbed Spencer a lot because he knew it was Gabe underneath all the dress-up clothes. He leaned over to me and said, "Mom, he doesn't really mean all that, does he? He really does believe in Christmas, right? He's just pretending, isn't he?"

I reassured him that Gabe was acting. And then Spencer, thinking back to watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas the other night, said, "He's acting like a Mr. Grimp." I think he's covering it all with that one: grinch, grump, grouch... whatever!

Mom called this afternoon after finally getting home. Because her flight from Atlanta left late, she missed a connecting flight in Frankfurt and had a 9-hour layover. She said she'd been up for 31 hours since she woke up yesterday morning at my brother's house!

The countdown is on. We leave Friday for Disney. We'll get half way there and stop overnight before continuing the drive on Saturday. Unless the kids say something really entertaining, I doubt I'll blog anything else this week. I'll be packing!

But we should have plenty of pictures to post when we return.

And I think Bruce is ordering our new camera today. We won't get it in time for Disney, but we should have it before Christmas! This works out well, because Bruce will have time to read all the manuals that come with the camera while he's on break from school... and then tell me all about the instructions in a nutshell.