Jolly Holidays.

1.  Our Elf on the Shelf, Jingle Joy, came back in 2013 to keep an eye on Marley and Rudy.  Both girls raced to find her every morning, gazing with wonder (Rudy) and suspicion (Marley) at the magical little tattletale who reports to the North Pole every evening on both their fresh and exemplary behavior.

2.  We got Fancy with a capital F and went to the Nutcracker ballet.  My favorite part is still the Waltz of the Snowflakes, when the pretend snow floats from the ceiling onto the stage and the snow fairies whirl around to dreamy choral music.  Rudy likes it when all the little rascally polichinelles race out from Mother Ginger's skirts, and Marley likes the acrobatic, Arabian coffee dance.  These favorites make perfect sense to me.

3.  The bonus at this year's Nutcracker was that Emma was there, too!

4.  And we indulged in souvenir nutcrackers, and after the matinee, Danielle and I indulged further with our girls by having dinner out at my favorite restaurant downtown.  And then I indulged in a craft cocktail, and the Christmas season had truly begun.

5.  At the Downtown Holiday Stroll the next weekend, we visited another new eating establishment on Main Street, a coffee shop I love visiting because of the lattes and the crepes and the Local Downtown Awesomeness of it all.  Rudy pretended not to know us.

6.  And then she got all exhausted by the efforts that holiday cheer requires.

 7.  Here's Rudy's temporary (as determined by medium) depiction of Christmas Eve.  She and Marley and Hat Lamb are venturing downstairs just as Santa is magically vanishing beside the Christmas tree.

 8.  Then, of course, there was the snow.  It came heavy and early enough for a white Christmas, and thankfully, Rudy's not as traumatized by lawns covered in white as she used to be.  

 9.  Marley's first instinct in a snowstorm is to settle in and give it a taste.  Then both girls: ran over to the playground for snowy sliding and swinging; giggled in the back of a sled that I pulled up and down the street panting like an actual Husky; and eventually ran crying inside because we didn't have waterproof gloves and their reddened, icy hands were throbbing.  I'm working on supplementing our winter gear supply, but it doesn't help that the boots and gloves are ALREADY PICKED OVER BY MID-DECEMBER AT MOST RETAIL LOCATIONS.

 10.  Our Holiday Activity Advent Calendar provided options for traditions and projects that often went ignored because of our schedules this year.  We still managed to shop for the Food Pantry and Toys for Tots, but the gingerbread decorating only got started.  And then abandoned.  Which is fine by me, because that's usually a sloppy, sticky mess that my tidy heart cannot embrace.

 11.  We managed to fit in a pajama drive to a locally famous holiday lights and display extravaganza, but it was so late by the time we got there that the girls were falling asleep by the end of the route.  I don't think Rudy even glanced at the last few dioramas.  

 12.  And then it was VACATION!  And Christmas morning!  And Santa came!

 13.  He brought my sweet little nerd a microscope.

14.  And Todd and I got Rudy over ONE HUNDRED plastic goldfish.  The blurry photo means that she was excitedly spreading and smoothing out the enormous school of vivid fishy friends.