Holiday Season

Thanksgiving has a little different meaning to Emily than it does to the rest of us because she isn't willing to eat most of the things that we eat on the holiday. She is happy to have croissants for breakfast, but that is pretty much where it ends. To her, the day is more about the Macy's Day Parade and the National Dog Show.

Ready for her Thanksgiving

 

This year, Emily made a plan to watch both shows with a couple of friends. She got up and got dressed in a nice outfit and then waited until it was time for the group FaceTime call. I think all three girls enjoyed the virtual party.

At our actual Thanksgiving meal, Emily was willing to eat cranberries, but nothing else so she had to fend for herself. She grabbed some graham crackers and used them to make little cranberry sandwiches. It wasn't much of a meal and definitely not as filling as our meal. The rest of us ate around 3pm and then were too stuffed to eat for the rest of the day. Given that we were full, I didn't even think about the need to feed Emily. Around 7:30pm, she came to us in the living room and seemed pretty irritated that we had never offered her dinner. Oops.

With Thanksgiving behind us, Emily was pretty antsy to set up for Christmas. I couldn't exactly figure out why, but then I remembered - our elf never appears until after the tree is decorated. I think she had some concern this year that COVID would keep Frisbee away. One of Emily's friends received a note from her elf, saying that it wouldn't be coming this year. I think Emily was concerned that Frisbee would send a similar note. Much to her surprise, she was happy to see Frisbee waiting for her when she woke up this morning. Frisbee did write Emily (and Abbie) a little note, saying that she was glad that we have been so careful about quarantine because it means that Frisbee feels safe visiting us. Yay!

Halloween

Emily's Jack-o-lantern

As I think that I have mentioned, Halloween is Emily's favorite holiday, so she was looking forward to it for a long time. On the day before, she designed her pumpkin and I carved it for her. She added the toothpicks, and I think that it turned out pretty well. Also on the day before, her school celebrated and all of their kids wore their costumes to school. Emily decided to be a vampire this year.

Dressing up for school

Finally, the official day arrived and she was curious as to what we were going to do to celebrate because we had told her that there were definitely surprises planned. We started the day with a trip to a local cemetery - an Emily request. It turns out that cemeteries are actually great places to walk around during a pandemic because there is almost no one else around (no one living, anyway). It was a beautiful day and we wandered around, reading tombstones. I think that Emily liked to imagine that she might see a ghost, but no such luck.

Pinata time

After lunch, we surprised Emily with a pinata in the garage. This is also something that she had requested and we were happy to do it. She had a great time whacking it and then ultimately collecting all of the candy that spilled out. After the pinata, we watched a Halloween movie. Emily requested the original 1931 version of Dracula. I had never seen it, and it was about like you would imagine, but she seemed to like it.

Hopped up on sugar

As evening arrived, we surprised Emily with a fully decorated house. Abbie put white lights along the floor, we set up a strobe light and some colored lights. We tried to set up a fog machine, but it didn't work. Oh well. Then we hid candy all over the house to create a candy hunt. Both girls ran around the house, gathering as much candy as they could find given the dark lighting, and then they had a mini dance party before calling it a night. Overall, I think that Emily was reasonably happy with the day.