Kwanzaa fun

As much as I love holidays, I'm pretty clumsy with Kwanzaa.  Two reasons: I have no context for how to celebrate except for what I've read, and I put so much into Christmas that by the time the pancakes are cleaned up from Christmas breakfast, I'm ready for a few days of watching movies and eating leftovers.

We have our kinara and light the designated candle and read it's meaning each night. Usually we will make a special meal on New Years (the last day of kwanzaa).  The kids were talking about how there is so much excitement around Christmas, and when it's over there's a big let down.  So we planned some surprise fun for December 26th, which was a Christmas gift from Papa and Meemaw. 

We went to a tubing hill that is only a couple miles from our house, but we've never tried it.  We had so much fun!  Truth be told, I'm a big baby when it comes to cold weather. But if there has ever been a winter where I was determined to embrace it, it's this one.  I even finally bought myself some really good boots.  Now I just need some better mittens.

After tubing, we got hot beverages at Kwik Trip.  Only because it was MeeMaw's treat, I let the kids use the whipped topping machine. 😉  That night we went to Kwanzaa Glow Night, which was a narrated drive-thru light show at the state fair grounds.  At the end of the light show, there were drive-thru food trucks.  Reggie picked mini-donuts, Lydia got cotton candy. and Brett got cheese curds.  Bryan and I each got salted nut rolls.

Over the winter break, we have also done lots of sledding.  The kids got new sleds from Grandma and Grandpa.  One is a wooden "snurfer" that you can sled or snow board on, and the other is a set of "sled legs" that you velcro to your legs.   The pond is finally frozen, so the kids can sled on the hill in our back yard.  We've gone to some parks to sled, too.  

We also had a game day.  We played board games for six hours!   And on New Years Eve, we had a movie marathon and the kids slept in the living room.  We made hot chocolate bombs. We watched The Hunger Games, which the kids and I all read this fall.  The book is way better than the movie!

Here is a link to a portion of the variety show the kids created for the grandparents for Christmas.  They worked really hard on it! 

Tomorrow we head "back" to school.  It sounds like there will be at least one more month of distance learning.  Things have been improving in Minnesota. I've got my fingers and toes crossed that we will not see a post-holiday surge and maybe in-person school will be on the horizon.