Christmas 2019

December 25, 2019

For the third year in a row we hosted Christmas at our house with a combined Sharp/Rainer clan. This year’s total was 27 people! The new kitchen vastly improved the experience for everyone – especially Dave and his mom, who did all of the cooking! Overall I feel like we’ve gotten the hang of things and it was less stressful to pull together. We had a quiet, low key Christmas eve at the house and a nice relaxing Christmas morning.

The dogs enjoyed themselves on Christmas morning – doing what they do best -sleeping. Benson got this toy snowman and carried it around with him all day. It was pretty cute.

The girls before present opening. The big present this year was a Nintendo switch, which Sophie had asked for and Lauren had not, so the reactions were pretty predictable.

Everyone arrived around 1 and dinner was served around 4. We do it buffet style in the kitchen with everyone sitting in the dining room and living room. We brought out a folding table right before it was time to eat for the overflow.

After dinner there was a lot of dessert, drinking, and opening presents.

December 22, 2019

Holiday Recitals

December kept us busy this year, including three performances. The first was different for us this year. Sophie got asked to as part of a small group from the Philadelphia Girls Choir to sing with a Canadian group called the Tenors who were touring the US with a Christmas show. The performance was at the Keswick theater in Glenside, PA and it was really great. The girls sang four songs with the Tenors, and they were amazing. It was a sold out show, which was also pretty neat.

Unfortunately she was standing in the middle of the girls behind a tall girl, so we could only see the side of her fact for most of the performance.

The girls got a picture with the Tenors after the show. Sophie is front row, fourth from left.

The weekend after this concert Sophie had her regular Philadelphia Girls Choir holiday concert at the Temple Performing Arts Center.

After the concert, Sophie with her friend Sophia Nagel, who she knows from Green Towne Montessori

And the final performance of the holiday season was Lauren’s ballet show, which was Hansel and Gretel this year. The performed at the Suzanne Roberts Theater on Broad Street. There were two performances in one day – one at 2pm and one at 7pm. I watched the 2pm show and then was a backstage parent for the 7pm show, which was a little insane. It was a long day for the little kids, and by the second show exhaustion was definitely setting in.

The full cast for the final blow. Lauren was a butterfly and is sitting front row, third from the right.

December 9, 2019

Christmasing 2019

The day after the anniversary party we got our tree. That’s a week later than usual, but we didn’t want to have it up during the party to save a little space. The last few years we’ve gone out to a Christmas tree farm called Yaeger’s Farm in Phoenixville. They have tractor rides out to the trees and then give you a saw and you cut it down yourselves.

In this area there is apparently a shortage of tall Christmas trees, so we found the tallest one we could, which was only about 6 feet. But it ended up being perfect – and we didn’t have to smoosh the star on top.

Lauren had ballet rehearsal for his holiday show and didn’t want to change, so this year she decorated in full ballet gear – making her a perfect dance partner 😉

Later in the month we enjoyed two other Christmas traditions – visiting Santa, this year in the Macy’s Santaland, and going to the Nutcracker, performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet. The girls got haircuts between the two below pictures. Sophie wanted the minimum amount cut and Lauren went for more of a bob, which she likes wearing with one side behind her ear. So stylish.