Performances, Planned and Un

All five of us were in the Richmond Hill Hometown Holidays (or something like that) Parade yesterday morning. All children performed beautifully.

Madelyn rode with her preschool classmates on their float, with the Gutsy Dad and Bronwen trailing behind. Here she is modeling her reindeer mask.

 And singing:

As you can see, she is wearing the same outfit as Friday. She's been adamant about dressing like "Santa's daughter." She took the Christmas-y jacket from one ensemble, paired it with a different red dress, and added black boots. (At first she said she wanted to be Santa, then Jillson said Madelyn couldn't be Santa because Santa was a boy, so I suggested she pretend she was Mrs. Claus. Maddie explained that she couldn't be Mrs. Claus because she didn't want to be a grown-up, and so she settled on being Santa's daughter.)

Do you remember those days? Those days when you just wanted to wear your favorite thing over and over and over again?

(When I was somewhere around Maddie and Jillson's age, I remember being very attached to a t-shirt that had a few little fish on it. I think there is a photograph of me somewhere wearing this shirt. It was in Florida, and I was picking grapefruit. In the photo, either my mother or my beloved Nana was leaning down to help me. I wore either blue or yellow shorts and, I think, sandals. I'd love to find that photograph.)

But I digress.

Jillson rode on the Daisy Scout float with her troop, and I walked alongside with the other Daisy moms.

It was a gorgeous day, and for a small town, Richmond Hill had quite a showing.

We spent the afternoon and evening with good, new friends, who drove in from Skidaway with their three kids to share some barbecue, conversation, and chaos. It's always good to find friends with whom the whole family seems to get along.

At one point, five of the six kids put on quite the impromptu Christmas-Ballet-Princess-Fairy-Fashion Show, popping out from behind our still-undecorated tree, proclaiming what they were supposed to be, and doing little dances. (Bronwen slept through it.)

I love this time of year.