a snap shot of a thollander christmas

well the holidays are coming to a close and family is heading home. here's a snip it of my christmas time thus far:
matt arrived the day after the snowstorm hit and then louisa and the kids arrived the day after that. although it was a little troublesome to get to the richmond airport to get everyone, all arrived safe and sound. i don't believe the kids had ever seen that much snow and they had a blast playing in it pretty much every day! here's some sledding and burying in the snow pictures:

sophie even went down some hills by herself! notice her impromptu "boots" here. louisa had ordered the kids snow boots but with the snow they didn't get here for a few days, so the boys wore huge old boots tied tight and sophie wore plastic bags over her shoes.

i'd never buried anyone in the snow before- it's fun

we assembled a sweet ginger bread house

and made cookies (which we dyed the batter vibrant play dough colors- not pictured)

we didn't do our christmas eve festivities (meat fondue/presents) or stockings until the 27th/28th, so on actual christmas day the kids went on a scavenger hunt for presents. each one had to solve rhyming clues to find the next clue. after three spots they found their prize! my dad used to do this with us each easter to find our easter basket so we decided to carry on the tradition- it was a lot of fun! jake found his in the upstairs laundry shoot

the night of the 26th jon and melissa flew in! here we all are wine tasting at king family vineyards

we went to historic michie tavern. the kids got to try on hats during the tour

and then we went there again the next day to eat some colonial southern foodand of course we made the traditional "cherry green cheese pie" where we dye the cream cheese filling green and then top it with some red cherries. very festive. with melissa's help this year i'd say it was the best pie ever!now some of you may be wondering who got the fish-head this year. for those of you who don't know what i'm talking about- every year matt wraps up an old skeleton fish head and gives it to someone special. well sadly this year the fish head was missing and has not yet been found. there was much uproar at first, but then we got distracted by warm fires and delicious cherry green cheese.