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  2020-10-31

  Halloween At Home

  Halloween is usually a month long celebration at our house. We plan our costumes months in advance. We go to Disneyland at least a dozen times to enjoy the special Halloween treats, decorations, and to wear the insane amount of Disney Halloween shirts we own. On Halloween night, we serve at our church running game booths for the community and come home just in time to trick or treat (and usually get A LOT of candy because we’re some of the last trick or treaters). This year, of course, every single thing listed above was cancelled. With so many disappointments this year, we committed to making Halloween a celebration from morning until night. Making our own backyard carnival, the kids bobbed for apples, carved pumpkins and played Halloween soccer (okay, it was just soccer but we were in costumes!) My daughter was over the moon to have us all dress as Hogwarts students, except for her little brother who dressed as her owl. Lunch included ghost shaped chips, jack-o-lantern quesadillas, grape “eye balls,” and guacamole in a jack-o-lantern pepper. To make dinner extra special, we brought out the fondue set we registered for when we got married over 15 years ago and never opened. The kids loved a dinner of dipping into cheese and chocolate. The one thing my son repeated all of October was he wanted to “trick or treat to all the doors in the house.” Undaunted, we turned off most of the lights, put a bowl of candy inside every door in the house, and put either an adult or a dressed up stuffed animal (there’s only three adults here and way more doors) at each door. The kids were genuinely excited to trick or treat and actually knocked at every single door, and gleefully filled their bags with candy. It’s easy to focus on all that has been lost this year, but this simple, stress free, at home Halloween may have ended up their favorite one ever.
• 2020-01-06

  Christmas and Covid

  December 23rd, all of my family is finally here and we are preparing everything. My grandparents are finally here and I am so excited to celebrate with all my family. December 24th, we have just finished wrapping gifts and oh my gosh it took so long. I also had to help my aunt out so I didn't finish until about 6pm. I have just gotten dressed in my black poka-dot dress with a short skirt and a puffy plaid jacket, with white fluff. We had the best dinner a beef stew, with potatoes, carrots, celery, chicken broth, beef, and some other stuff. We finished off the stew and had a desert of chocolate chip cookies. At midnight (can't believe we made it) we opened all the presents. I got a Looney Tunes sweatshirt, fluffy caramel colored shorts, canvases, paint, more clothes, and a French easel. In the morning I went to my grandparents house and enjoyed an early dinner. We then proceeded to open presents, and had a wonderful time. All in all Christmas wasn't as different as I thought it would be. All my family was there, we ate a lovely dinner, and had so many presents.