Christmas Fun

 
 We have no school or swimming lessons this week so we are feeling pretty free.  We went to a candy cane hunt in the park and Santa rode in on a fire engine (a local tradition.)  The girls had fun running around with all of the other crazy little kids although I'm hoping we don't run into Santa anymore this year.  We usually only see him once but this year he seems to be everywhere and my kids are getting offended he keeps asking what they want when they already told him.  "Shouldn't he write it on his list so he can keep track of us being nice and naughty?" 

Red Fish would like a real unicorn this year.  I've tried to convince her that unicorns like to run free and she isn't going for it.  When I told her months ago that unicorns were pretend (before I realized how seriously she takes unicorns) it went over like a lead balloon.  She looked at me like I was clearly uneducated on the topic and said "Um, no Mom."

 Tonight for family home evening we decided to continue our introduction to Swedish culture with some more treats from the package we received.  I planned a whole Swedish dinner and invited my parents over.  My Dad lived in Sweden for two years as an LDS missionary before he was married. My Dad told the girls all about Christmas in Sweden and read them a book our friends sent to us.  Then we made some Swedish gingerbread cookies together.  It was a blast.  They have to be rolled out very thin so it was quite a process with our two little experts trying to control the rolling pin.  Two Fish also told the girls about Christmas in the Philippines (where he served a mission for two years) and my parents told them about their childhood Christmas traditions. We read our nightly scripture from our countdown by candlelight like we have been doing every night. We had a great night.