A Little Bit About Our New Year

The thing about have four young children and living an hour away from church and the vast majority of our friends is that it makes the decision to simply stay home on New Year's Eve an incredibly cut and dried one. With naps and children who are ready for bed between seven and eight, going out and subjecting them to the wonderful chaos that this particular holiday brings just doesn't hold a candle to keeping everyone home and just hanging out together.

We spent New Year's Eve doing just that. We occupied the first part of the day with odds and ends, then had all the kids go down for a nap. Even the five year old. It was a pretty easy thing to get them all to go on to sleep, considering we bribed them with the promise of a Family Fun night with special things to do.

Anna gave up on us all and went to bed right after dinner. She was not interested in the New Year Nonsense.

We kicked off our Extra Special Family Fun night with a rousing game of Trouble. It has been entertaining playing this board game with the kids. Sometimes, the game d.r.a.g.s on. And on. And on. And... on. Their interest tends to fade if it gets too long, but we remind them that we need to be sure to finish the things we start. By the end, we are generally laughing and getting silly.

After our long game of Trouble, we sent the kids upstairs and played a game of Hide & Seek. The kids are really good hiders, and pretty terrible seekers. But we all had a great time! The game ended abruptly when I spotted fireworks, pretty good ones, a few houses down. We quickly turned off all the lights and stood to watch.

However, we were disappointed. There were no more fireworks set off. We watched and waited, and waited and watched. The kids bordered on whiny, so we quickly pulled out string and measuring tape. We cut a length of string to be as long as each child was tall. Then we measured it, recorded it on a piece of paper, and wound up the string. Each little bundle of string is labeled with the corresponding child's name. We then weighed them and recorded it with their height. These little pieces of information, along with some other odds and ends, will be put into our shoebox time capsule to be opened next year.

We gathered in the kitchen with our wine glasses of sparkling grape juice as Daddy made a toast. The kids loved clinking glasses with everyone! After we drained our glasses, we tucked the kids into bed. It was not midnight, it was only a little after ten. But the time had come to kiss our sweet blessings goodnight and tuck them in.

Joshua and I, being the hearty party-ers that we are, followed soon after. We have this understanding with the New Year. It can, and will, get here without us. The kids, on the other hand, well, they wake up on their own. But then they need our assistance! Best to rest up and be ready for them! After all, they are one of the best highlights of our Old Year and our New Year.