One of my favorite things about being Catholic are all the extra Feast Days to celebrate different people of faith throughout history.
I especially love the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.
Which is on June 24th and marks six months till Christmas!
So naturally we get the Christmas tree down and have a Half Christmas party!
The kids love decorating for Half Christmas. They choose what ornaments they want to use. They put the bows on the tree and they work really hard to cleaning up the living room.
They are adorable little Elves.
They also love planning their outfits and wearing their christmas t shirts.
(This is why it's important to have Christmas t shirts!)
Don't get me wrong. I love Summer too. And with Half Christmas being in June is a great time of year to get together with friends and do summery things.... while celebrating Christmas too!
This year we roasted hot dogs over a fire and had a hot dog building station on the porch.
It always helps to invite responsible adult people to help with the roasting of the hot dogs and marshmallows.
Of course we also have Christmas cookies and everything you need to decorate a Christmas cookie.
I made mostly Christmas shapes but I did made butterflies and sharks too.
Really it's just an excuse to have fun people come to my house.
And have lots of great food.
Joanie even came all the way from Nashville for our Christmas party.
Because it is a Christmas party there needs to be Christmas gifts.
Luckily for me, I always have lots of Christmas wrapping paper.
(I buy it after real Christmas, on sale)
This year everyone got dance ribbons and water guns.
This was Margaret's first water gun and boy was she happy about it.
She ran around shooting everyone shouting "shoot shoot"
Our friends even brought us gifts!
Actually, with Christmas being so hectic last year we didn't see our friends around Christmas time. So she saved our gifts for Half Christmas! Brilliant!
I think my favorite part of the day was when everyone went out on the front lawn and played with their dance ribbons. That made me so happy and it was so fun and lovely to watch.
Here is one of Rosie's cookies she decorated.
Also, if you get marshmallow fluff and a kitchen torch (the kind you use for creme brûlée) you can have toasted marshmallow on top of cookie!!
It's amazing. Especially if your sugar cookies aren't too sweet.
Obi was a huge fan of the marshmallow fluff
Rosie was very creative about decorating her cookies.
I made so many that the kids decorated all weekend long.
Margaret is proudly showing me her half eaten cookie.
I even got the Christmas dishes out!
Happy Half Christmas everyone.
This is our favorite way to keep Christmas in our hearts "all the year long" like Scrooge and Tiny Tim taught us to.
How do you keep the magic of Christmas alive?
Have a great Summer!
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