Some "Activity"

The first thing that comes out after Thanksgiving is the little,kid friendly nativity.  I try to kick off the season with that being the center of attention for our first Advent and it's the only toy out at the Gingerbread Party-well, inside anyway.  It is my attempt, among all the sugar and excess, to keep Christ in Christmas.  Those little characters have been well loved in my grandparenting years to date.

At the Gingerbread Party, when the crowd had thinned, Miss Linee announced, "I'm going to sit right here and play with this activity."
Tonight, Gardner E came over for some Christmas fudge and to see Bean and Bugg, when she witnessed a highly unusual event.  For some time, Bean and Bugg drifted into the living room and played nicely, together. This is unusual, because  they aren't up for much unless they are the center of my attention.
I stopped my conversation to listen for a minute to what type of play had them so engrossed.  It was that "activity" again.  Though the imagined events weren't much reminiscent of the that Holy Night.  More like what you might find in Bethlehem in today's news.  And what did my listening ear hear. Full scale war. "Look out lamb, watch out shepherd, get out of the way Jesus!"  "Boom, bam, splat!"  I hope they took cover in time.  What can I say. Their daddy's gone to war.
Bugg throughly enjoyed helping make the fudge,

 only to be topped by eating the fudge.

 Both kiddos loved the cool new gifts from Gardner E.

This little gadget was too fun. I've never seen one. It is a wand that produces static electricity and a book of these very thin, silver, mylar like shapes (some hoops, some butterflies, etc.) that you sort of direct with your wand.  Can you see it floating above the wand? Actually, there were two wands and they had a big time chasing flying things around the house.

This was a little purse with a wiener dog, sporting a bow, inside.  That little puppy-girl had about sixteen names by the end of the evening.
It was a fun, very Christmasy sort of evening- well, if you don't factor in the Holy War.