It seems like just a week ago, I was taking pictures of trees filled with brightly colored leaves. Today, those same trees are nearly barren of leaves. Yet, after all the leaves have fallen, it would appear that the trees are already preparing for the new leaves to fill the empty spaces.
And, of course there are the pokie-balls too.
My new advent activity has been well-received. I came up with a nice list of activities promoting togetherness and Christmas cheer. Although well-received, it has not been without challenges. In spite of my planning around homework, basketball practice, and various other commitments, a few of the tasks that require a larger investment of time had to be put off. Having assigned the activities a week ago, the days where the homework left to do is high leaves me holding my breath as I open the box to retrieve the daily task. I open, search for the task-of-the-day and hope for simple items such as playing Christmas music during homework completion, or saying a prayer for someone in need. It’s not that I don’t want to bake cookies for the neighbors – which was the assigned to-do on Sunday thinking surely he’d be done with the majority of his weekend homework by then. Unfortunately, trimming the tree, cutting out snowflakes for the windows, and watching Christmas movies were put ahead of the homework – because YaYa’s mom did not assess the assigned load. Nor did she verify that he had actually gotten a start on it when she’d told him to.
This morning our activity was one of the easy ones…or so I thoughts. We were to go to Starbucks for YaYa to have a peppermint hot chocolate before school. We left home earlier than usual to allow for the luxury of enjoying a bonding moment. You know, because that was the whole idea behind this new tradition. We were sitting at our little table enjoying our drinks. YaYa’s hot chocolate made extra special with peppermint syrup and chocolate sprinkles on top of the whipped cream. I left the top off so that he could see how festive it looked and for the photo (of course).
You know where this is going, right?
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