Mitten Tree

Our church sets up several "mitten trees" at this time of year, when congregants are invited to decorate pine trees with scarves, mittens, hats, tights, and other warm accessories, which are then donated to various local charities. There are two trees set up in the main sanctuary for adult items, and two trees set up near the Sunday school classrooms for kids' items. Today A's Sunday school class cut their own fringed scarves out of patterned fleece, and she was excited to hang hers on the tree after church, knowing that it will soon keep another child warm.

We had a busier Sunday than usual - after church, A had pageant rehearsal for a couple of hours, so Ben, E, and I enjoyed some shopping downtown while we waited to pick her up. The highlight for E was getting to ride the light rail! We also got to admire the HUGE Christmas tree in the downtown square.

This evening we had a mini-celebration during dinner. We wanted to teach the kids a little bit about Hanukkah, so we made latkes, lit candles and talked about the history of Hanukkah and what it celebrates, and then read a children's Hanukkah story we had gotten from the library last week. Both of the kids had seen a menorah and E even knew a song about latkes from his preschool celebration, which he sang for us. Ben grew up celebrating Hanukkah along with Christmas, because his stepmom and younger brother are Jewish, so he shared some stories of past Hanukkah celebrations with A & E. We did have to refer to Wikipedia to answer some of A's questions when she wanted to know more background details than what we could offer! Thank goodness for the Internet! It was a fun evening, and all of us except E really liked the latkes. (Unsurprising, given his picky tastes.)