Week After Christmas

The weekend after Christmas was fun. Marta, Frank, Elizabeth and Travis (Elizabeth's fiancé) visited us on the 26th. We had Chinese food for dinner and played one of our new games--Guesstures. 

Elizabeth helped Luke get set up.

On the 27th, we went to Night of a Million Lights at the Give Kids the World Village. It was the place where we were supposed to volunteer once a month in 2020. It was pretty pricey for our family (around $150), but I knew the money went to a good cause and it was nice to show the boys around the village. The lights were beautifully done and we spent about 2.5 hours walking around. Normally, they would have families staying there, so it is only in the rarest of circumstances that they can open to the public. They had to postpone 6000 visits during their closure! They plan on reopening on January 17th to a very small number of families. I hope it goes well and more kids can have their wishes granted.

There were lots of fun photo opportunities

The rest of week passed in an uneventful manner. Thomas worked all week, including New Year's Eve. We had our traditional cheese fondue for dinner, which everyone likes. Although, Luke doesn't eat the cheese, he just makes a plate of the dipping items. 

We talked about our favorite parts of the year and our hopes for 2021. Luke's favorite part of the year was Christmas. Thomas enjoyed all the telework. Anna said playing basketball. Jack said staying home. For Kara it was Thanksgiving. I was thinking more specifically about a favorite memory and I chose our day at Busch Gardens. 

We did not intend to stay up until midnight. Thomas has done it in the past with kids who were interested, but it was generally a low key affair, where the kids still went upstairs and read or hung out in their rooms until 10 or 11. Well, I think that is what they did, I can't remember the last time I stayed up on New Year's Eve. But, this year, all the kids were interested and we decided to just do it. We weren't prepared, we had no special snacks, party poppers, decorations, etc. But, it turned out to be a really fun night. 

We watched the Fox special with Joel McHale and Ken Jeong. Or, at least part of it. We would mute it and periodically play games. We played Throw Throw Burrito, which is Luke's new favorite. We also played "Just One", which was really fun. It is a collaborative game, so there is no winning or losing. A player puts up a card, but can't see the word on it. The other players have to write a single word as clues. But, if two players write the same word, then they are cancelled out. For example, one word was "mask". I wrote face, Luke wrote disguise and Thomas, Kara, and Jack all wrote Covid. So, Anna had to try and guess with just the hints of face and disguise. Unfortunately, she missed it. You play with 13 cards and see how many you can get. We ended up with 6. Not bad for our first time. Luke was able to guess "forest" based on oxygen, fire, Deku, camping and Voldemort. Everyone enjoyed the game. Our last game was Guesstures, which is a charades type game. We did girls against boys. Anna and Kara were amazing! They are good guessers and clue givers. Everyone did well and it was close, but thanks to Anna and Kara, the girls were victorious. We had a great time with all the games.

I was too busy playing to take pictures, but then Jack was just so funny. This is relax.

This is pucker.

Time went by quickly. At midnight, we counted down and then ran outside to see some of the fireworks people were setting off. There were some pretty big ones that were close by and it felt festive. I would even be willing to do it again.