Merry Christmas...Happy Kwanzaa!!

I hope you all had a wonderfully joyous Christmas...I know we sure did!! As usual, we spent the morning at home watching the kids open Christmas presents; this year was Xander's first Christmas, so it was extra special for our family. For a little kid who's famous for ripping paper to shreds, he didn't do that to his presents....he was just happy tearing off a piece of wrapping paper and eating it! LOL! This was the first Christmas that I didn't make breakfast for my guys, I was so tired from all of the cookies that I made at the last minute, the last minute Christmas Eve shopping (mostly for myself) and the late night gift wrapping! Instead I sent Troy out for Dunkin' Donuts.

We travelled to Trenton to spend the rest of Christmas with Troy's family as we normally do. We had a beautiful buffet style dinner at my in law's that the whole family takes part in putting together. Renee (MIL) did the majority of the cooking since it was at her house. I made watermelon and apple martinis, which were very strong since I used schapps and flavored rum instead of the non alcoholic mixers! Can you say cotton mouth?...good grief, my mouth feels like a desert!

Today, the boys and I will travel to Deptford to spend the "day after Christmas" with my family. This is our made up holiday so we get to spend Christmas with everyone, but not feel the rush of having to go from house to house, especially since we are all so spread out over the state.

I'm running a little behind with preparations for my sister's house. I need to make the chicken parmesan and the cornbread...we usually do an Italian meal for our celebration, I mean one can only eat so much turkey and stuffing! We're also having green salad, vegetable ziti and lasagna....of course some desserts, including my cookie platter.

I'll post pictures from our celebrations later!

Today is also the first day of Kwanzaa!! Here's a LO I did a few days ago about the holiday.

based on this sketch by beggahuna

The title nguzo saba is Swahili for 7 Principles (1 for each day of Kwanzaa) **journaling taken from a Kwanzaa website**

Umoja (Unity) To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.

Nia (Purpose) To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Kuumba (Creativity) To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

Imani (Faith) To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

The Kwanzaa diecut was originally 1 piece and blue. I inked it black and cut the 2 symbols off, the coated "kwanzaa" with glitter.

Here are two more Christmas cards I made using Tinsel Town.

Thanks for taking a peek...have a happy new year!!