Christmas has come and gone

Here are a handful of highlights from our Christmas:

We had our traditional Bethlehem dinner, with couscous, fish, hummus, grapes, figs, and pita bread.

Daniel was Santa Claus in his school play.  One of the advantages of being the tallest kid in class is that you get to be Santa while the other kids have to be elves.  As you might guess, Daniel loved being in the spotlight and totally hammed it up.

Jumping at his chance to be in the spotlight, Benjamin sang "A Hot Cup of Cocoa" at a family party.

Basically, we had a very nice Christmas with lots of activities as well as some really nice moments of quiet reflection.

And I know it's a little late, but I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year!  We had some friends over on New Year's Eve, but their kids were too tired to make it to midnight.  Around 10:00, we had an "Everything Must Blow" fireworks show with all the fireworks leftover from the summer.  My kids were still going strong at midnight; it was me that was drifting off to sleep.