Just a Little Update

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I thought I’d pop in and give you a little update on us as I’m still enjoying a bit of a bloggy break for the holidays – I mean, really, there’s not much to blog about when we’re not doing much of anything except relaxing.

We did enjoy a very nice Christmas together. Our church had a great Christmas Eve service Saturday night, which we followed with a wonderful evening with my side of the family. There was much food, much laughter, and much enjoyment of one another’s company.

My family always does a “white elephant/Chinese auction” exchange for the adults and the kids draw names. The white elephant part means that you bring something that you already have at home but aren’t using – though a few of us have broken the rules on that part lately when we haven’t really had anything to pass along or re-gift.

The Chinese auction part means that everyone draws a number. The first person chooses a gift to open. The next person can then take the first person’s gift or choose a gift to open. If your gift gets taken, you can either take someone else’s gift or choose an unopened gift to open.This goes on until everyone has chosen a gift. The person who chose first gets to choose, at the end, whether to keep their gift or choose from all the opened gifts since he/she didn’t have a choice at the beginning.

I have no idea where these things got their names, but they are always so much fun – especially with my family. There’s no telling what someone is going to bring. We always wind up laughing until we cry.

Christmas Day was really great, too. We managed to surprise all three kids this year – a first, as far as we can recall. Brianna got an iPod Touch, which I wrapped in a bunch of towels in a box that looked like clothes. She was very pleasantly surprised.

Megan got a Nintendo 3DS, also wrapped in a box to look like clothes. I can’t believe they both fell for it.

Josh’s big gift was a drum set. Yeah, we’re probably crazy. The boy actually has some rhythm, though, so it sounds pretty good, rather than like a bunch of noise. Those required a lot of sneaking around and hiding. It was kind of a “Christmas Story” moment where we told him to go look on the covered deck after all the presents had been opened.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon with Brian’s family.

The day after Christmas we went out to lunch and did a little shopping with our Christmas money. It’s fun to actually enjoy shopping for clothes again. It’s also fun to spend the day out together as a family.

We finished up the night at my dad’s house, so it was two fantastic days of family time, something we haven’t had enough of lately. It was a wonderful Christmas. I hope yours was, as well.

Yesterday, we had a busy day at home taking down the Christmas tree (it’s so nice having tall, strong, handy, almost-teenage boy), putting away the decorations, cleaning house, and catching up the laundry. I can’t stand starting school with a messy house after a break. Now, if I can just keep it clean until next week.

I’m excited to be starting our new curriculum next week! I’ll be posting updates as we go along and a full review in a few months, but I’m feeling very positive.

Don’t forget, there won’t be a Weekly Wrap-Up this week and I’m still going to be pretty scarce over the next few days, but we’ll get back into the swing of things next week. In the meantime, enjoy your family and leave me a comment, letting me know what’s been going on with you.

Kris Bales

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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