Thanks for the Fun

Pardon the hiatus, but I had a long weekend. I had to proctor a sleepover, (drama, anyone?) and that took a lot of mental energy as well as coffee consumption and refereeing.

I also had to upgrade my operating system to Lion, even though I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard. What’s up next, Apple? We've already reached the most powerful feline in the animal kingdom…maybe Lioness?

Finally, we took down Christmas decorations. Never my favorite, not because of the work, but because of the way the house feels when they're gone. It seems so bare, even though it has plenty going on. Even the six year-old felt the letdown. She started crying and said, “The house is not so pretty now!” All the more reason to get creative and fill the blank spaces, right?

Anyway, not a lot of supreme creativity going on this weekend. I did make red velvet whoopie pies for the party. I attempted to make it a group project but was trumped by Just Dance 3  and the prospect of “staying up until midnight to watch the new Jessie.” Ahhh, the fickle eight year-old.

So I will share with you the Christmas thank you note adventure from last week. I promised I would, once people had received them. We should be good to go now.

If you have one, two or more kids, you know the fun of trying to get them to write thank you notes after holidays and parties. Not the highlight of the day, and littler ones get writer’s cramp after about, oh, two words.

I thought we’d take a different tack on the thank yous this year, and get the kids involved with planning them. They decided to act out their thank yous to show the appreciation for the gifts they received.

They got out their gifts, clothes, tickets and toys. We put everything on the table and started a crazy, frenetic photo shoot. One f the girls would yell out a name: “Uncle Jim!” I would snap a pic and they’d shout the next name. “Mimi!” and off they’d go again, throwing on a shirt and grabbing a ticket.

Yell.

Grab.

Pose.

Snap.

Repeat.

After the frenzy we had a series of poses. I uploaded them all and sent them to a local pharmacy for one hour processing. In the meantime, we cut rectangles from Christmas-print scrapbooking cardstock, wrote notes on the backs and everyone signed them. After the pictures were ready, we glued them to the cardstock and, Voila! Christmas-framed prints of thanks.

Hopefully the cards were received with the same joy as the girls had making them. They put as much, if not more, time, attention and thought into thanking the people who had put time, attention and thought into their gifts. Instead of a chore, the job became a game. Wow did I channel my inner Mary Poppins or what? I didn’t even need the spoonful of sugar!