The Christmas Party

I know I promised lots of pictures of Catherine playing in the snow, but it is rather difficult to get that kind of picture when Catherine has absolutely no interest in playing in the snow. She stepped into it for about 2 steps, then made Michael carry her - she was only willing to walk in the plowed street. After about five minutes she asked to go inside.




So we mostly stayed inside Saturday, which was fine with me because I had a bit of cleaning and setting up to do to get ready for our Christmas party, which was at our house Sunday evening. We were expecting at least 50 people and I think we probably had 50 to 60 in spite of the weather (for those of you who have been in my house, don't ask me how we got 50+ people in here - I have no idea).

We started off the evening with a Christmas Story pageant put on by kids from both churches. Catherine, Morgan and I were angels, Robert and Tristan were the sheep, and Mary was baby Jesus. We have some older kids at the early church in Forestdale, so Autumn and Danny played Mary and Joseph, Nathan was our representative Wise Man, and David had to switch between roles of Narrator and Shepherd. Our guitar player who was supposed to lead us through the songs didn't make it to the party, so at the last second (literally) we recruited Mrs. Bliss who did a great job standing in on the piano. The pageant went pretty much the way you would expect a play put on by a cast with an average age of 5 to go. Catherine spent most of her time on stage trying to remove a string from her slipper, and one of the sheep confiscated one of the Wise Man's gifts and also thought about stealing Jesus' pacifier. However, a wonderful time was had by all. The whole thing is on video somewhere, but I haven't previewed it yet.

Tristan, a little lamb:


Robert, a little lamb, going after some early Christmas gifts:


The two little angels waiting in the wings for their debut (this was Morgan's first play and she took her role very seriously, and did a wonderful job):


The cast:



The party continued with Mr. Peters' famous homemade clam chowder and oodles of cookies from all over the Cape. After dinner we were fortunate to get an early visit from St. Nicholas! This seems to have made Morgan's year, but not many of the other kids were excited. Catherine immediately decided Santa should go home and after I tried to sit her on his lap she refused to even go in the same room with him. Tristan ventured close enough to touch hands but still would not sit for a picture. And Robert (St. Nick's own son) was almost as terrified as Catherine! Anyway, we got a big kick out of it all and if nothing else, Morgan probably had sweet dreams of her conversations with Santa last night.




Many people started to make their exit soon after Santa because the rain we got in the afternoon was all going to freeze in the early hours of the night. However we did manage to get in a few Christmas carols before the evening was through.


And Catherine very much enjoyed an early Christmas present from Ms. Rizzio - she loves this hat and scarf:





It was a lovely day, but of course to Catherine, any day she and Mary are wearing "same dresses" is a good day.