MAKING CHRISTMAS!

Some reader may know that my title refers to the maniacal song, "Making Christmas," from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I like to sing it, loudly and out of tune, when I am crazily trying to both prepare for Christmas and finish off a semester.  Good times.

I finally submitted grades today, so that part of the job is over (there are so many other, much less pleasant parts to come!).  So now we're full-throttle on MAKING CHRISTMAS!

We went to the Lowell Humane Society to get Alice's picture taken with Santa:

She was kinda freaked out by Santa, which is why she's on the floor and *not* in his lap.

This experience led us to the knowledge that Lucy still very much believes in Santa.  Out of the blue, she asked "What are we going to do with Alice on Christmas?" We weren't sure what she was talking about, but after a few more questions, she revealed that she was concerned that Alice would bark at Santa when he arrived (middle of the night, as is his fashion) and scare him off.  We have solved this with a promise that Alice will sleep in our room on Christmas Eve so that she does not spook Santa.

Lucy's school has been buzzing with activity, including a visit, this week from the Lowell Spinners Holiday Caravan.  We got a lot of details from Lucy (she got autographs!), but we also read about it on Lucy's school's blog!  Sounds like it was pretty exciting.  And this just in, there is apparently video of it that was on the news!

Our tree is up:

It's much smaller than our usual tree.  We were worried about a certain four-legged-member of the family having tree issues.  Mostly, I was worried that she'd wag that lovely long tail of hers and take out swaths of ornaments.  So the tree is perched on the table, and Alice has taken little interest in it.  Success!

In other local news, we went to the Open House and Artbotics event at the New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation Center (NERVE) here in Lowell.  Lucy got to fly a quad copter and also be chased by the same.  We played with lots of robots and it was awesome!  I for one welcome our new robot overlords  (so long as they're validated at NERVE!).

Today we went to an event at the Spinners Park

There were very long lines for pictures with Elsa and pictures with Santa, so we just went to the unbelievable short line: FOR PUPPIES!!!

 We tried to put this one inside our coats and walk out, but they wouldn't let us.  The puppies were from Great Dog New England, another great local rescue organization.

More soon, we hope!  But for now, back to MAKING CHRISTMAS!