Twelve Days of Christmas

Last night the kids decided, somewhat last minute, that they wanted to do the Twelve Days of Christmas for the elderly couple that live across the street. I was a little hesitant because of the spontenaity but because Aaron and I did this once when we were just dating and it made that Christmas so memorable, I decided to go with it. Austin grabbed his Gingerbread House kit we had yet to put together, wrote a little "first day of Christmas" poem and we headed out into the cold to watch him try to sneak it onto the neighbor's porch. He quickly discovered that the drapes were wide open and they were sitting right in front of the window. He stood out there contemplating a strategy for quite a while. When the cold began to get to him and he realized there was no other way, he charged onto the porch, dropped the gift, rang the doorbell and ran for cover. He was so happy with his secret mission...until our neighbor called several minutes later asking if it was us that had just been at their place! The kids were furious when Aaron admitted that it had been us who'd left the package. That is, until they found out that being 88 years old, having your doorbell rang late at night and finding a package on your porch is a little unsettling. Once they knew it was us, the neighbors were happy about their little surprise. The kids were a bit disappointed that it is not a secret anymore but they still had fun running across the street tonight to leave cute little snowman mugs with packets of hot chocolate on the neighbors porch.