Over and over again, I need to remind myself to let go of expectations.  Not just unrealistic ones but expectations altogether.  Last year we made a village of ginerbread houses complete with snowmen villagers.  It was goofy and fun and beautiful. This year, I thought I was going to do the same thing.  A friend mentioned that she wasn't going to do gingerbread houses and so I decided that if we could swing it, I would have a party with her kids and we would build some together. She wouldn't have to do the work and we could visit and while our teen kids decorated and chatted and goofed off.  I pulled out my recipes, got to work with the templates and baked.  I laid out the table with frosting, candies, and gingerbread templates.  We gathered and built, talked and laughed and when we were done, there were 5 completed gingerbread houses and that is all the farther I got on our village.  My sugar plum fairy ideas ended with the party.  I just couldn't pull together another baking session and so our two houses joined the graham cracker houses I had built for a photo shoot and that was that.  I am OK with that because I am learning to let go.  Christmas is Christmas without a gingerbread and snowman village.  It is Christmas without piles and piles of cookies.  It is still Christmas without snow or really anything else.  Christmas has a whole different meaning and the fluff is nice but that is all it is.  Still learning and the party was worth it.  It was all about the people involved; that these teens still were willing to sit around a table and work with frosting, candy, and houses. That was the gift for me.

There were four high school girl teams so each team played the other teams three times and then there was the championship games.  Two games, one for 1st and 2nd and the other for 3rd or 4th.  The team that beat us were mostly senior varsity girls from one of the Bellingham schools.  They were good.  Then there were two other team, the Ranger white freshman team and a rec team from Blaine.  Lona's team came in 2nd. It was so lop sided.  I almost wished that they had taken all the girls and mixed them up, putting strong and weak player together kind of like the way they do it for the men's over 40 league.  You sign up and they put you on a team, assign you a color and the games are back to back.  Fun.  This wasn't like that and some teams took a beating.  We did when we played the first place team.
I really do like watching her play.  Looking back on some photos, it is amazing how much things have changed since she played on the small field 7 years ago to now that she's playing on the large field.

Each year I take the kids to the Reach Out Christmas wrapping day.  There we spend hours wrapping presents for other people that are struggling at this time of year. We go through rolls of Christmas wrapping paper and scotch tape. Every year, the boys pick up the wrapped gifts and place them in the family group according to the family number. The empty paper tubes become weapons and when the work is done, a tube fight breaks out. This year though, the wrapping was mostly done over the weekend and so we spent an hour. This was always my thing to do at Christmas. It was something I planned for to the point of allowing the kids to miss school if it wasn't a half day.  This was important for me and for our kids to remember others even if we didn't know them. To realize that Christmas isn't the same for every one and it isn't just about getting.  Maybe next year, I will have to help with the shopping instead.

I am not sure went I started this but it's been years now I have refused to buy Christmas wrapping paper.  Every time we order something and they put in brown paper as a filler, I fold it up, place it in a basket to save it.  When birthdays or Christmas comes along, I pull out my saved brown paper and use it as wrapping paper.  I dress it up with Baker's twine and a cute tag.  I sometimes make my own tags with a stamp. I like shipping tags for this. This year, I had greenery from the garlands I bought.  Each time a large piece came off, I picked it up and put it in my supply tin for wrapping.  The morning for wrapping Christmas presents, I put on Christmas music and had apple cider as I chose the correct boxes for each gift.  There is just something about wrapping presents and thinking about the other person as I do it, makes it feel like Christmas.

This team is going on to play in the state cup.  Which means more evenings of practice, more games out of town. He's still the smallest on the team and every now and then he can take someone out.  Usually though he gets bounced a little.  He wears a headband though his hair isn't long enough to get in his way. And gloves, he wears gloves because he gets cold. And I still like to see him go shoulder to shoulder with kids taller and heavier than him.