December 2023 isn't quite over as I pen this blogpost but it's been a wonderful month so far. The girls and I managed to memorize the Saint Andrew prayer and made the whole 15 per day novena prayer from November 30 to Christmas Day.
Advent started out with confession and coffee with the besties and ended with all the kids home for the holidays and doing the 4th Sunday of Advent Vigil Mass together. Though we missed the DeVries for Christmas Eve Mass at Shrine and Christmas Day I'm grateful they were able to make time for us along with Tyler's family. I try not to take that for granted and I was NGL super excited when Isabel told me she was forgoing her long layover flights and driving home with Noah, which also meant we got to see and spend time with him over the holiday.
Along with Noah, we got to see a lot of Nate, the FGR/MSU grad that Carmen has been dating and it's been delightful getting to know them and have them around for the holidays along with all the big kids!
Rosie can fall asleep just about anywhere and above is the proof!
We don't really do gifts at Christmas because we never did Santa and we'd see so much of the grandparents it just became superfluous. I've always done stockings but on Saint Nicholas' Feast Day. Therefore Christmas is always kind of low key. Since the kids got bigger and we haven't seen my family as much and it's really only us visiting Paula on Mike's side nowadays it's made Christmas very low key and so the bigger kids decided to do a Denja Secret Santa gift exchange for Christmas a few years ago and it has become a lovely tradition. Either way, I wasn't expecting anything for Christmas from anyone and what an incredible surprise to find the bigger kids had all chipped in to get me this nugget ice maker! Just when I thought Christmas couldn't get any better than the toilet of 2022!!!
Let's see if I can remember everything/everyone: Tyler had Peter and won Christmas by getting him Lightsabers! Maria had Carmen and got her a box of self-care items. Carmen had Paulina and is going to take her to get her ears pierced! Isabel had Lucy and got her a Bingo backpack. Mikey had Mateo and got him two shirts, some V-bucks and energy drinks. Peter had Mikey and got him a big old container of protein powder! Mateo had Tyler and got him Hey Dudes. Paulina had Isabel and got her the William Sonoma Peanuts Snoopy Waffle Maker and a set of Snoopy sheets. Lucy had Maria and got her a Snapfish book of pics of her and Rosie.
HVCS does their Christmas concert the morning of the last day of school before the break and then it's followed by classroom parties and a noon dismissal. I honestly LOVE it. 4th Grade played recorders and sang a French Christmas carol.
7th/8th Grade Choir sang a medley of Christmas songs.
Kindergarteners sang Over the River and Olivewood Something-or-other.
The last week of school we skipped on Tuesday and I took the 3 younger kids with me to babysit Rosie. I had to make cookies for a Christmas cookie exchange at work the next day so while Lucy and I did that, Paulina put Rosie to sleep in the carrier!
Mary Conover lovingly made me this Lala shirt and outfit for Rosie too! I love it. Good thing because Rosie immediately peed all over her planned "Auntie's Bestie" outfit of the day!
Jillian (far right) is a mom I've made friends with since coming to HVCS. She suggested we plan a get-together to go see the Chosen Christmas special so we did that and had some drinks at Bar Louie's first.
The next morning I got to have coffee at Songbird with Sarah and Christine. We are three of 4-5 local Michigan moms in an online Catholic Moms group that spans from Washington to Canada to Texas to Georgia to California to North Carolina to Virginia to Delaware to New York to Iowa to Indiana to other states I'm probably forgetting...LOL
6:30pm Mass at Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica in Royal Oak - beautiful and not very busy
and (pun not intended) holy cow was it a foggy night at 46 degrees!
Glory of Christmas at Northridge is in it's final year. Not even knowing that I looked late for tickets but managed to find the last 3 seats together and we got to see the finale show - so grateful to the McGuires for introducing us to it three years ago! Lucy was SO EXCITED about Red Man/Green Man but freaked out when they came over to try to high five/fist bump her!
Mikey and friends doing mercy hours for school by ringing the bell at Kroger for Salvation Army and then a few friends touring EMU with me and getting a one-on-one from the school director for the College of Health and Human Performance program. Getting a Masters in 4 years and free on scholarship and my tuition waiver would be a GREAT opportunity for Mikey but we'll see! He's applied at UM, University of Dallas and EMU. So far we've only toured EMU but he'll go visit Isabel and his friend Max at UD in early 2024.
On a whim the night we played SSA in basketball I thought I'd invite a few of the sisters to Mateo's teammates (who happen to be Paulina's classmates) for a sleepover and we went downtown to see ELF at the Penn. Unbeknownst to me there was a whole Christmas festival happening downtown Plymouth so the girls (despite the cold) checked it out and were very accommodating for a photo shoot as you can see!
Saint Nick delivered on his Feast Day - nothing like opening presents before school - even Mateo got up without being woken up!
One of this fall's treats for the girls has been attending Open Gym and Ninja Nights at Splitz Gymnastics in Canton. I took the big girls for many an open gym and birthday party at this venue!!
I haven't wanted to do anything but sit and scroll my phone this holiday season. I absolutely love seeing everyone's Christmas photos and family gatherings and thinking about all the LOVE Jesus brought into this world. It makes me so happy.
