Christmas Recap

HEY - I just remembered something!

I have a blog.

OK, enough about me. Let's talk about you. How have you been since . . . um, Thanksgiving? At least I think that was the last time we spoke. No wait, there was fudge somewhere in there. Anybody make it? I need to hear some success stories, people!

So. I hear you asking, "How was your Christmas, Karenpie? New Year's? Sinterklaas Day? WHERE THE HECK WERE YOU?

Well, maybe I was taking a sabbatical. You know what a sabbatical is, don't you? It's from the Latin sabbatical which means take a bunch of time off but still get paid. It's a time to refresh, renew and learn new stuff about your chosen profession. Some people write books or get degrees while on sabbatical. They improve themselves.

Which is why I wasn't on a sabbatical. I was just busy. And too lazy to do something as strenuous as improving myself for cripe's sake. Besides, my three employers are way too cheap to pay me not to work. I get enough flak playing Bejeweled on company time as it is.

My 3 bosses, showing me how big their mouths are.

Oh joy. And one of them has a gun. They have rather drastic means of enforcing company policy.

Anyway, back to the pre-Christmas, Karenpie rush. We had many parties at school. I was involved in all of them. Let's start with Katie's. Since I'm the room mom in her classroom, I was in charge of this gig and, being the genius I am, combined the craft and the snack into one activity. Genius, I tell you.

The kids made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, frosting and a veritable buffet of candy. I fortified myself with Red Vines and waded in. And, another genius move? I bribed parents with Starbucks to come help out with Gingerbread House Construction.

This is NOT just a pretty face, people.

Unfortunately, the GB houses didn't hold up. See that sweet face up there? Can you also see the runny nose and watery eyes? As her 4-sided house fell down for the 3rd time, she lost it.

We ended up with graham cracker teepees.

But she perked up for the caroling! It's a tradition in our school for the 2nd-graders to go caroling to all the classrooms. The sounds of 38 2nd-graders singing "Away in a Manger" in the hallways was precious.

On to 5th grade.

Matthew's class did skits and invited classrooms to come watch. For this skit, Matthew and his buddies did something about the candy cane. And the letter J for "Joy" and "Jesus". Also it seems that Darth Vader was there, holding the candy cane.

I have no idea why.

Which brings me to Daniel's class. They had a big pot luck and everyone brought their favorite thing. I made a crockpot of Daniel's favorite food in the whole wide world - White Soup, or, Baked Potato Soup, as the rest of the world calls it. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of the white soup or of Daniel's party. By the time I got there, his classroom was dark and they were watching "How to Train Your Dragon". Don't you love school, the last day before break? It's just playing and eating, man.

School activities weren't the only thing going on in the Karenpie family, though. Check this out -

Wilton candy kits - suckers and pretzels. Are these made for crafty, little girls or WHAT?

They come with everything you need - candy melts in 4 colors, molds, plastic bags to melt them in and even cute little plastic bags for wrapping, in case you want to give them away as gifts.

I had 2 little elves going crazy with these. They did it for HOURS. It was awesome. I'm telling you -

CRAFT + SNACK = FUN. Actually, craft + snack = CRACK. How do you think that will go over during the 2nd grade room parties? "Come kids! It's time for crack!"

I love being a role model.

Katie's BFF, Mia, really got into it. The kit comes with a paintbrush in case you want to go crazy with candy melt details.

These sucker molds are stacks of gifts - can you see the ribbons and bows? Katie painted in all the ribbons and bows before filling them up. They were really cute.

So, information dump #1 complete. Stay tuned for the second installment entititled:

"The Karenpies spend Christmas in Kansas".

I promise you won't have to wait a month for it.

Promise.