Better late than never, that’s what I always say!!  (That really is one of my all-time favorite phrases, can you guess why?)  Over the Christmas holidays I didn’t even touch a computer, and since getting back home, what with school starting and all that stuff, I haven’t visited the blog here.

I’m not just late in wishing you a Happy New Year, we were actually late in celebrating it at all!  At my parents’ house, where we spent Christmas, many of us were sick, so it was a little more low-key than usual.  And when New Year’s Eve rolled around, the most celebrating we did was put the kids to bed kinda early and stay up late watching a good movie!

So when the kids and Henry and I came back home, I thought that we really needed to have a small celebration, even if it was late.  I made a yummy supper and a fun dessert and we watched a movie together.  And then I thought, what else can we do?  Inspiration struck.  I rushed the kids into their pajamas and off to bed early. No one really complained, even when I turned the lights out really quickly.  Obviously no one had time to fall aleep……before Christmas music started blaring and Henry ran into the kids’ rooms and shouted “Get up!! Get downstairs right away!!”  (But not in a scary the-house-is-on-fire type of way.  More like a something-crazy-is going-on kind of way.)  He commanded them to get into their winter coats and boots, and I passed out the crazy hats. Then we all piled into the van.  It was pretty funny!  The funniest part of all (for me!) was that Henry actually went out in his p.j.s, too!  (That’s not a big deal for some people, but for others it is! Obviously it wasn’t a big deal for me to do!)  It was so interesting to see the kids’ reactions.  I must say that we have never done anything like this before.  And if I didn’t read blogs and Pinterest, I don’t know if I would have ever thought of this idea!  We let the kids wonder where we were going, but ended up at Dairy Queen and had a yummy snack!(fancy cranberry meatball supper)(getting out the door)(going to Dairy Queen in our pajamas!)

Henry and I were both surprised when the kids asked, “so what’s the big news?”  “huh?”  “Are you going to tell us that we are moving or something?”  They figured that we had some big news to break to them!!!  I tried to give them “a new baby” thing, but no one believed me!  That one is not even really funny at all.  No, really it was just a Happy New Year’s celebration, no hidden parent agendas.

Just as we were leaving DQ, we heard fireworks!!!  I was so pleased (and amazed!) It was almost a week after New Years Eve, and really, you are not supposed to be lighting off fireworks in the city!!  I knew that it was specially for me, to complete our little celebration!!

We went home and lit some sparklers outside, that was fun, but our fingers were freezing up!  It’s weird to stick sparklers in the snow, they stay lit for awhile indside the snow drift, then finally fizzle out.  So our celebration even had fireworks! 

Then when we were frozen, we came back inside and the kids had their last camp-out by the Christmas tree.   It was a very happy little celebration! Happy New Year and to all a Goodnight!!