Hanukkah! In bullet points.

 What a blur those eight crazy nights were this year! Let me give you the  bullet point edition:

• The first night was the only night we got Minnie a gift because we are bad people and are clearly taking advantage of the fact that SHE IS A BABY WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING.
• We used the first night as ugly sweater night and Santa Picture Night (all caps because this is our official Santa pic for the year.)
• We also opened gifts from my mom, so night 1 was a biggie.

• The other nights were all low-key
• We made a brisket and latkes for the first time, and the house still basically stinks.
• We also made Hanukkah cut-out cookies and experimented with icing, which made us realize BUTTERCREAM IS BEST.

• We continued our tradition of doing theme nights (book and calendar, games, toy, art stuff, etc), but it is getting hard to fit Harry's gifts to the theme, so his were usually outliers
• Harry and Jack broke Cooper's hover board by throwing a football at him one day as he rolled down our street (I cannot even type that without laughing) so they were supposed to buy him a new one with their Christmas money. But! We took pity on them and got him one for Hanukkah, and they were more excited than he was.
• I should have mentioned this earlier, but Ben was a latke-making machine
• Some of the gifts (like sunglasses that play music, Calico Critter dwellings, the hover board (check out the pic of Harry's fist bump and Jack's cheer), a telescope) were pretty big hits.

• Minnie is NOT a brisket, but she would fit in a roasting pan.

• Ben fried. The other kids opened. Minnie and I did this.

• My classiest gift of the season:

• It's Spode and cocoa season FOR SURE.

• OMG this game. Cooper and Harry have almost beaten each other to death playing this game.

• For the last night of Hanukkah, we always do a sibling gift exchange. This year, it was weird because instead of shopping in teams, they just ordered gifts for their secret person on the internet. So! To make it fun, they are keeping their people a secret until Christmas Eve, when we will do an exchange after dinner #blendedfamiliy #secularholiday