Chill Out

Inspired by Kelle Hampton over at Enjoying the Small Things, I caved when Grace asked if she could have a few friends over to celebrate school being out for Christmas.

Grace originally wanted to decorate individual gingerbread houses, but realized that she could invite more girls if she switched to gingerbread men.  Publix graciously obliged with very cute ones!

When the girls first arrived, literally minutes after school got out for Christmas, they were wound up.  Grace just wanted to "chill out", so they immediately changed into pajamas that we had asked them to bring.  Note:  we didn't ask them to bring one other thing.  We could have done an ornament exchange or Dirty Santa, but the point of this day was to relax.  Nothing required.

Grace and her friends are big into the crazy mismatched socks thing.  I found these fuzzy socks with grippers on the bottom at WalMart super cheap.  I hung them by the chimney ~ with care ~ and asked each girl to pick a solid and a stripe.

After lunch they watched Elf, one of our holiday favorites.  We had inflated the air mattress and scattered pillows and sleeping bags all around.  At first I was afraid that they were too wound up to watch it, but they quickly settled in as they recited the lines and nudged one another to say, "This is my favorite part."

By now they were hungry again, so we selected a dessert and fixed hot cocoa.  

Last, we decorated our gingerbread men.  I couldn't think of any other way to keep them working at the same time than to give them each their own bag of icing.  I bought a pack of the disposable piping bags, set them up in cups, and made a huge batch of icing.  I also put little bowls of small candies around for decorating.

As a memento of the relaxing day, each girl brought home a jar of our "Calming Cocoa" mix and a bottle of "Sweet Dreams Pillow Spray."  I hope this the beginning of a very relaxing break for the girls and their parents!



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