A New Year's Beginnings

Neither J nor I have ever been big News Year's Eve celebrators, so it is rare that we do anything special.  On NYE, J was in bed by 22h00, but the kids were still awake and excited.  We went up to their room and read lots of stories, and Ti'Loup longingly expressed a wish to set off fireworks (prompted by Bobby's 5th birthday with his Grandpa Bob in the book Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomie dePaola).

 "We have sparklers," I said.  "This is a special occasion; let's use them."*

Which, as you can imagine, was met with great enthusiasm.  Except by J, who did not want to get out of bed to come sparkle in the New Year with us.  :P  The kids danced in the snow in front of the house with their sparklers, then we went to the cross that is set up at the entrance to our hamlet and said a prayer for the New Year.  We are blessed to be alive, to be together, to be healthy, to have shelter, to have grace:

 

 

 

( More Family Fun and Traditions under the cut )

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* I have never found sparklers for sale in France (OK, I haven't looked super hard), so I have hoarded these from Egypt.

** A silver lining to losing old friends is that, by moving along, we have made new friends

*** For those who don't know, Farmer Boy was born with a squint.  He had surgery a couple of years ago, but he still needs to wear a patch 3hrs/day on his right eye to make the left one work more.