December 2020 Fun (WE DID IT!)

 We did it, y'all!  We made it to the end of 2020!  Good riddance!  Can I travel yet?

NOT SO FAST.  Gotta get that vaccine first.  In the meantime, we spent a quiet December in our new home. 

Well, the kids had fun this month as we got a bit of snow early on in the month.  This didn't even compare to what we got later in December!

It was mid month when we hit 300k Covid deaths in the United States.

December always brings low sun angles so sometimes it makes for a pretty sunset.  You know. At 4:15 pm.

Santa down!  Santa down!  We had a really windy December.  We only averaged below a 10 mph wind speed for 11 days of the month- and of those 11 days, we only averaged one day that was below 5 mph. An 8 mph wind doesn't seem like much until the air temp is 27.

There was a rare astronomical phenomena right around Christmas when Jupiter and Saturn were so close together in our early evening sky that they appeared much brighter than usual.  It's been almost 400 years since this last happened and it may even have been the source of light known as the Star of Bethlehem!  Of course, we didn't actually get to see it because the entire week of Christmas was cloudy. This was taken the week before (and you can't tell from this picture but the only visible planet was Jupiter.  Saturn was off to the northwest of it a bit.)

We did get a neighborhood visit from the Big Guy as he went up and down almost EVERY street in Ashland with brightly lit and loud firetrucks.  We went down to the Tally house to watch (here with Aiden and Jackson).

Hello Santa!  I think it was funny he was on a boat on a trailer.

The firetrucks were super loud, and you could hear them zig zagging all over town for several hours before they got to us.

Todd has been very into making his own pizza lately (Wegmans crust is die BESTE!) so after Santa rode through town, we had some for dinner!

Man, I thought these days were over but apparently they're not.  The kids still will not touch him.

I needed to get a few things at Trader Joe's but the governor put new limits to the human capacity of stores so Trader Joe's had set up a, "1 person leaves, 1 person can go in" policy.  The first time I tried to go, it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella, so even though I had to wait about 10 minutes to get in on my second try, at least it wasn't raining and the store wasn't crowded at all.

Y'all.  Have you ever seen such a nicely folded fitted sheet?  Todd did this!  Sure is better than the balled up mess that I usually make.

We got a decent snowstorm (especially for December) in the week leading up to Christmas.  We went to bed and it looked like this.

We woke up, and it looked like THIS!

Todd and our neighbor Mike, like two ships (men), passing in the night (snow).

I took this one as a zoomed in shot of how deep the snow was.

My OCD is off the charts here.

Kids, go out there and shovel the new walkway.  I'll say it again... isn't this why people have kids???

Always Daddy's girl.

Grant finally got to go use the new snow tube he bought with a gift card from Nauni and Uncle Gordie for his birthday.  He's like, knee-deep in the snow trapsing across the yard!

So apparently there's this meme where when people make terrible gingerbread houses that fall apart, they say, "If your gingerbread house fails, just add a dinosaur!"  Ours actually came out pretty good, but after leaving it on the counter for two weeks with everyone breaking off little pieces here and there - this eventually happened.  So we added a dinosaur!

And in December, THIS finally happened.  It was only a matter of time.

We also had our Pillsbury Dough Boy jump off of the top cabinets not ONCE, but TWICE!  Once when Grant was alone in the kitchen, and once when I was alone in the kitchen.  He was up on top of the cabinets, wedged up there between the cabinet and the ceiling and suddenly... he was on the floor!  We secretly think Buddy, our Elf on the Shelf pushed him.

One of the hardest things about this holiday season was knowing we couldn't go to any Christmas markets (not that we could go if we still lived in Germany.)  But at least we were able to find some Glühwein (thanks World Market and Trader Joe's!) and enjoy the hot beverage in some of our favorite Christmas market mugs.

We make these Christmas cookies every year and the kids do the decorating.  We can plow through 4 dozen pretty quickly.  I like that Natalie seems to be pondering what toppings to put on her cookies.

I swear I had the heat on in the house.  The kids had just come in from playing outside to decorate their cookies.

I think this is one of those memes...  How it started....

How it's going.

Our tree was really pretty this year.

These numbers were not so pretty, however.

A couple of days after our big snowstorm, the neighborhood kids made a snowman in our front lawn on a 53 degree day, which also happened to be Christmas Eve.  Here is Quinn, AB, Grant and Ava showing off their new friend.

The kids took advantage of the warm weather before the snow melted and went sledding in our backyard.

Natalie and AB took turns on the man made snow ramps Todd built.

Then they all slid down on their bellies!  Natalie, Nathan, Grant, AB and AT rode down on their rainbow colored sleds!

These faces ha ha ha - I love it!

Natalie and Grant were bookended by brothers AT and AB. I think AB won this race!

As the day got warmer, the snowman started to look a little sad.  Natalie, always my overly warm child, is outside in a t-shirt and snow boots. 

Oh Frosty, you're looking pretty sad!  By Christmas morning, he was gone.  I did a whole other post about Christmas Eve(ning) and Christmas Day- so you'll have to read that to find out what we did!

NOT ONLY is this maybe my new favorite bourbon... but seriously, how much better is the camera on my new phone???

OH MY GOODNESS aren't my babies 5th and 8th grade pictures SO CUTE???  I'm so glad their schools allowed them to come take school pictures even though they're doing remote learning.

Much like every other holiday this year, New Year's Eve was spent at home.  Todd made us a nice little snacky spread while we watched our favorite New Year's Eve show... Dinner For One!

Fireworks aren't allowed in Massachusetts (not to say some people don't still use them) but it's certainly NOT AT ALL like Sylvester in Germany.  Instead, we got pots and pans ready to say AUF WIEDERSEHEN to 2020.  The pots and pans are a little too loud for Grant though, so he put on his headphones!

No one looks happier than Grant to say goodbye to 2020!

Todd and the kids went outside to make some noise (and I think they were distracted by others doing the same!)

Just doing our 80s prom dance on New Year's, no big deal.

We didn't get to see them this year, even though we had tickets and whole trip to New York planned, but at least we got to end 2020 on a nice note - seeing our handsome boys from BTS!

You know I always end all of my travel posts with, "Until next time, (insert random European city here)!"  I truly hope there is no other year like 2020!  Good riddance and here's to better things in 2021!