All in a Day's Work

Today was my Hillson-Kamps Christmas Family gathering, of the Central-Canada Variety. (that means it had very low attendance)

However, not being an accountant or mathematician, numbers do not matter much to me, each individual who was able to attend, though, meant very much!!

Here is HOlhol wearing her brand new (beautiful) sweatshirt that was gifted to her from her lovely Westernly Family. It sent ripples of awe and oooh through the crowds of festive party goers. (there were a lot today!!! busy busy in that little living room area that we all visit in!)


Being the season of merriment, I planned well in advance for today's journey and festivities. First of all, FOOD. That has always been high on the list of essentials for me growing up. (for most i suppose... but for my family in a special way) Food: It was the topic of arguments and of joy, the source of comfort and sometimes queasiness. Hot or cold, plenty or little, food has always been a central part of our Hillson-Kamps parties. My dear dear Oma always supplied plentiful trays of goodies galore. Meatball soup or ham with mustard sauce, cake, cookies, hot chocolate and plenty of, "oh go ahead, you need another bar or square or cookie!! THey are so little, take another!" :) She kept us well supplied. So in her honor (and for our enjoyment) i prepared a holiday ham, complete with mustard sauce, beans and mashed potatoes to share with my sweet cousin Holly today. We sat as a family and ate, the six of us took the "private room" (classroom) since the living room was so jampacked there were no chairs for us.

I did not get any photos of the dinner, but i suppose that is a good sign. A sign that the food was so good (OR that we were SO hungry) that we devoured it too quickly to be caught on film. :)

The GIrls from the centre made us DELICIOUS goodies for dessert. Scores and scores of them. So many, that they sent us all home with beautiful tins full of them! :)

My sweet cousin, my sweet little girl. :)

Being the out-of-doors type, (both Holly and I) we brought our crazy carpet and cruised all the local hills! Swift. But oh so tiring walking BACK up those long drawn out ontario hills. :) Maybe next year there will be a tow rope...




....And this is where she said, "I'm going to see if i can glide down on my boots"

ahha. Cowboy boots have a very pointed toe that gets caught easily.... I caught a nice "i'm flying head over heels down this hill" shot. :) hahaha. she didn't really fall though.


Chillin.

I love seeing Hol play with my kids. I miss all my cousins dearly, they were a huge part of my growing up years and it just doesn't feel right to not have them around. (that -of course- also goes without saying for all the other dear sweet family back home. sister and parents at the top of the list!!)



Here they are watching Holly take the preliminary run down the hill.
They all agreed, she ranked in the top five and is going to the Olympics.


What great form!


What great technique!


So cool. She is way too cool. too cool for all that ice.


The Great Wait.
when can we go down?
Hmmm on that topic: I'm always shocked and amazed (you know, during all those minutes i spend reflecting on my day... before i pass out on my pillow) at how well my kids travel, respond to change and new situations. They adapt amazingly well and i praise them for it (when i notice and remember). They are so patient with us. With me. I can't fill all their needs right when they'd like (water food bathroom mittens socks boots kisses-for-hurts help-with-arguments fixing-toys holding-hands etc) yet they wait for me. Today, complete with 7 hours of driving, one hour of shopping, four hours of visiting and half an hour of helping me clean up once we got home - and they went to bed thanking ME for bringing them to "HOlly's house". wow. where does that come from? crazy eh? God's little and big blessings just out of nowhere. THANK YOU Lord!! :)






I hope you enjoyed the "Gift Opening Series" staring HOlly. I wanted Ant and Uncle to feel like they were there with her. :) So we did some surprise faces and tugging-off-the-paper faces. She was very happy with the satsuma scented things, repeatedly saying "this is my favorite scent!". :)


And this is a look of joy on her face, what a wonderful thing to see.

I can't recreate it in the blog, but the crowd reacts so beautifully to HOlly when she is at the microphone. It is a gift. Really, I can't describe well enough the chemistry Holly has with people. She was reading the second half of the narration of the Christmas story for the kids during the "Christmas program" today, and the moment she took a stand at the mic, the crowd came alive with Laughter. Whether it is the tone of voice or the words she chooses, HOlly has a way of working the crowd.


The singing of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" with different words then we are used to... it was very well done and the girls seemed to be having a BLAST. :)

All in all it was a good day. A lot of hard work went into today, but it paid off. Some of my favorite times were: when we first walked up, Sam saw HOlly (whom he should not remember... i can't think of when they would have seen each other last....) he looked up at her with big eyes and a smile and said in one of those "you must be SANTA CLAUS" voices: "You are HOLLY. You are HOLLY!" it was so cute. :)

I also loved seeing Holly sled with my kids.

I loved the food (in good hillsonkamps tradition).

I loved bringing Christmas to HOlly.

I loved driving in the dark, watching all the lights and listening to MercyMe next to Dave.

And i love that soon i will be in bed.... ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.