A Little Christmas Prep

For the upcoming Hobbit movie, Reilly decided to read the book, but he didn’t stop there, no. He’s gone on to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy:

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Sometimes when we’re sitting on the couch together, I’ll take a break from the book I’m reading and look over Reilly’s shoulder at his book. I’ll point to random words on a page and ask him what the words are, and he’ll tell me. Then I’ll act really impressed that he can read random words! However, when Reilly tries to peek over at my book to see what I’m reading, I’ll lean away from him and bring the book closer to my face, because I only pretend to read, mostly because I don’t know how, and having a literate/-ary family is mere pretense to me; I only want to look cool and not be cool.

Reilly printed out a map of Middle Earth and the surrounding lands so that he doesn’t have to turn to the back of the book every time the books mention a different location. I was going to take a picture of this printout, but I can’t find it, which either means that Reilly is embarrassed by his slight nerdiness and hid or threw away the map, or that he has memorized the map, which could be even more embarrassing. (I secretly think it’s awesome.)

Right now I am “reading” Barbara Kingsolver’s latest novel, Flight Behavior. It’s about climate change and perfect for the Christmas season!

The Christmas tree is up and decorated and even guarding a few presents beside it. We also have stockings, but we don’t have a fireplace or mantel. We do have a bar, which is a sufficient substitute because I don’t feel like putting more holes in the wall or using ugly tape on the wall:

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I’m not super crafty, but I do like making snowflakes. Also, Reilly has the tall stocking, and I chose something a little more traditional. Also, we don’t have fishing line, and I couldn’t find our thread, so I used dental floss to hang the flakes. (That pretty much cancels out the idea of not using ugly things for decorating. Oh well.)