The kids have been big helpers this year as we've prepared for Christmas.  I talked Sophie into helping me make a pomander ball, a project that lasted about 2.5 minutes for her.  Here she is inspecting her finished project - not quite fully covered in cloves, but a start anyway.


Martin's help decorating the tree was actually really useful this year.  He was very content untangling lights, testing them, joining strands together.  It was terrific, because our tree turned out to be so dang tall that I had to stand on a ladder and use a grabber (thanks hip surgery!) to place the lights all the way at the top.


They've been very good about either leaving decorations alone or playing with them gently.  The exception to this is the nativity set, which I've already put away.  Every guy and gal sustained immediate injuries - losing heads, arms, and legs until the whole cast looked ready for the emergency room.


I've retired the set for this year.  I decided that this year, we have enough real injuries around here - I didn't want to have to keep performing re-attachment procedures on the whole holy gang.