Precious Holiday Moments

Apologies for the long post, I’m attempting to cram four weeks worth of memories into one post.  Here’s what we got up to over Christmas:

Youth Group Christmas Fun

We host the youth group once a week at our house.  As they had mock exams close to Christmas (they are 15-16 yrs) we decided to keep things light and fun over this period.  We split the group into two and had a friendly competition.  We arranged some Christmas puns, a quiz and a final task of writing and performing the Christmas story through rap.  Oh my, this was so funny.  Here is the first group performing and their song:

and the second group performing followed by their song:

Too funny 🙂

Lots of Revision

This was a fairly common sight this Christmas as T tried to push himself to finish homework and revision for his up and coming Physics IGCSE this month.  It was hard for him though, as everyone else was having fun and doing very little work wise:

T13, the Music Man

A few months ago T decided to learn how to play the guitar.  He took to it really well and with the encouragement of his youth leader he has led his youth group in worship.

He also sings for the youth choir and occasionally in the youth worship band.  A few weeks ago he decided to teach himself the ukulele, so he could play some of the Rend Collective songs.  He is thoroughly enjoying learning and this is a very common sight these days:

Village Christmas Shopping Night

We live in this incredible village, which hosts events throughout the year to encourage the local people to shop in the local shops so we do not lose the character of the village.  The Christmas night is so much fun, with quizzes, candy floss, freshly cooked doughnuts, a hog roast roasting on the pavement (!), fairground rides, Father Christmas’ Grotto, and face painting.  In addition all the shops have late night opening, complete with drinks and mince pies.  we never have to prepare dinner on the village Christmas night!  The little girls had their face painted by a lovely lady from our church (all free, you just donate whatever you want).  I had to take some photos because she did such a beautiful job:

My beautiful girls.

The Snow Ball

My son is old enough for the first time to go to the church youth group’s snow ball.  He was on the events team and was kept busy right up to the day, decorating the church and getting it ready for the ball.  It was a Black and White event so he searched the charity shops and found black trousers, a dress jacket, a black shirt and a white bow tie.  He buys all his own clothes so it had to be within his budget.  He asked Granny to iron everything (I never iron so haven’t taught him to do it himself and I was stuck in bed ill).  He adores his granny and the feeling is absolutely mutual so I had to get a photo of them together when he went next door to show her how he looked:

It was so sweet, because although his sisters were completely envious of him being able to go and them not (they are a smidgen too young), they were so supportive, helping him get ready and generally being as helpful they could:

He had invited S14, his lovely friend who he does physics with, to go to the ball with him.  Don’t they both look gorgeous?

Christmas Day

We had all been extremely busy making the majority of our Christmas presents.  I thought I would share a few of them.

• I made a slate hanging with the child’s name and its meaning written on them:

• Blogs

I spent hours creating blogs for each of the older children.  Hours because I am not very tech savvy and because I wanted them just right for each child’s personality.  Once created I took a photo of their blogs’ front page and pasted it on a card, which I then popped into their stocking:

I can’t begin to tell you how pleased they were!  The blogs will remain private for a year and if they behave responsibly the blogs will become public next Christmas.

• C made a t-shirt for Gary using a transfer which she created saying ‘Rules for dating my daughter: Don’t!’  He was tickled with it:

• Gary had carved the most beautiful signs for the girls out of wood.  C’s said hats and was made to store her many hats and L’s said jewellery and was made to store all her jewellery creations:

• He and I both made some signs to go on the little one’s walls saying their name and ‘you are fearfully and wonderfully made’ written on them to remind them just how precious they are:

• Gary cut, planed and sanded a huge long board (long skate board) for T.  He bought him the grip tape and promised they would spend some father and son time together putting on the wheels and grip tape:

• T made door signs out of wood he had cut to size and sanded and then stuck scrabble letters to:

He made one for each sister, one which said ‘The Boss’ for Gary to take to work and one for me, which I was over the moon with:

• I bought, and did not make, a hat and a pocket watch for Gary to go with his tweed jacket he had bought himself a while back.  He was delighted:

• L made everyone the most beautiful jewellery, including some very cool cuff links for Gary:

• C wrote the fruit of the spirit on some stones and gave them to me:

• The littles, with my help, downloaded cookery ebooks for C, jewellery making ebooks for L and printed out guitar chord to T’s favourite music bound into two books.  They decorated the covers for each book:

As you can see, T has been putting these to good use already!

I’m sure there was more but I think I have included most of it!  We had great fun both making and receiving our home made presents and will definitely be doing the same next year.

Mum joined us for Christmas day and came bearing gifts as Mrs Santa:

You’ve got to love a woman who will dress like that for Christmas, haven’t you?

Boxing day we go round to mum’s house, but I didn’t get any photos of that at all 🙁

Our New Book Giving Tradition

I will probably write about this later on in the year but having seen a wonderful post from Leah on almost unschoolers about the giving of books just before Christmas, I thought what a great thing it would be to do after Christmas when things have dies down a bit.  Ooooh, we all LOVED this new tradition and I can definitely see me doing it long into my dotage!  Here are the books I chose for every one:

and here they are unwrapping them:

Yes, they were just a little bit pleased!

New year was quiet as Gary was working both New Year’s eve and New year’s day.  We had a really lovely relax and with Grandparents coming today, we won’t start school for at least another week.