Master of Questions (and other Nonsense)

Trivial Problem

I’ve been asked by my boss to act as Emcee for Holiday Trivia at our Christmas Meeting/Gathering. There will be some training before hand, catered dinner, and Holiday Trivia.

I’ve never been to a Trivia night at any local bar or pub. Because of this, I really have no idea how they play. I know a few bloggers who have and some friends who go, but it seems that every place does it a bit differently. Getting questions for this is no issue – all I had to do was go into my folder of Christmas trivia I used when I was on the radio. It is the execution of the game itself that I don’t know.

The basic gist of the thing is that there are 2-5 rounds of questions. Teams write their answers to the questions on a piece of paper or on index cards. There are points for getting the right answers. Some places wager on questions based on the topic. I really am clueless. I plan on doing some sort of search online to see the best way to do this.

Have you ever been to one of those trivia nights? Any suggestions?

Our doc is probably sick…. of us!

Over the past 10-11 days, every one of us has been to the doctor. Today, I had both kids in the office again because their coughing sounded awful. We were worried that the gunk we all got was in their chest and might lead to pneumonia.

I swear, between in office visits, ER visits, telemedicine calls, and messages back and forth through the office portal, our doc has got to be sick of seeing our names! On the other hand, she might just thank us for making her house payment this month!

Chilly Fun

Daisy finally got to go outside in the snow. She wasn’t really sure what to make of it. She was biting at the falling snow for a bit and really didn’t know what to think about walking on it. It didn’t take long and she was running round and rolling in it. She was even eating it off the ground.

The kids were insistent about going outside when the snow fell. Neither was feeling great, but they wanted to see the snow. We bundled them up real good and we were outside for 10-15 minutes. In that time we started to build a snowman.

At first glance, in the above photo it looks like Andrew is putting the snowman’s head on. That, however, was not the case. He has actually removed it and about 2 seconds later, he threw it on the ground. Then he and his sister jumped on the rest of the poor snowman. Sigh.

Elfin’ Around Again

The Elf on the shelf is back and once again, I have to be creative with it. I’ve been lacking a bit, but the kids still get a kick out of it. Two nights ago, I just put it on top of the TV looking down. The laughed at that more than the Elf and Barbie looking at Christmas lights…

Last night, I printed some pictures of the elf and made it cover all our faces in the pictures on the wall…

Perfect Gift

I’m not sure who might read this, but this will be a bit cryptic. My wife’s Christmas present is on the way. All I will say is that I may have mentioned something about it in a past blog. I have seen some pictures and I cannot wait to see it in person. I truly believe that this will be a BIG surprise for her and I hope that she will love it!

I’ve had to tell her that there is a package arriving and that she cannot open it when it comes.

Taking “Elf-ies” – Part 2

When we first got Twinkles, our Elf on the Shelf, from Sam’s mom, I wasn’t sure that we’d be up for creating something new for it every night leading up to Christmas. Over the last month, I discovered an Elf on the Shelf Facebook group with ideas and stumbled across many on the internet as well.

I won’t lie, it has actually been very fun to do every night. Ella loves waking up and searching for her elf. Twinkles will be heading back to the North Pole on Friday night to help Santa get ready for his ride and deliveries. I’m sure next year she will have as much fun or more!

We may or may not have to recycle some of these ideas in years to come. Here are a few of my favorites from the past few weeks.

Twinkles the action hero! Zip lining to the tree.

TPing the tree! Festive, right?!

Sam gave her some wings!

Ella had been talking about paper snow flakes. I got to make a mess and she loved it!

When we were all sick, it only made sense to give Twinkles a cold, too!

Sam grabbed Ella’s princesses and they had a little dessert party.

Twinkles threw “snow balls” at all of us in pictures on the wall!

She obviously had so much fun with the “snow balls” that she challenged one of Ella’s Barbie dolls.

When Ella woke up, I didn’t say anything. I was making her chocolate milk and she looked up and saw Twinkles. She looked at me, then back at Twinkles, then back at me and said, “Daddy! Twinkles is in my chips!” Priceless.

Last night, Sam sent me this at work in a text message that read, “See? I can be creative, too!” I laughed out loud!

I may have to start planning next year’s Elf things ahead! This was fun!

Taking a few “Elf-ies”

I admit my creativity level is not what it used to be. Thank goodness we have the Internet! Thank goodness for those who are more creative than I am!

With the addition of Twinkles, the Elf on the Shelf, there is now a nightly panic about what we are going to do with it every day. I didn’t think Ella would be into it as much as she is. She really loves looking for her every day. She doesn’t get the whole idea that the elf “reports back to Santa” yet.

I am not ashamed to admit that I have borrowed many of my ideas from the Internet. I have had some fun with it for sure. I am not to the point where I am going out to buy props or outfits for the thing yet. Maybe when Ella gets older, but not now!

Here are a few highlights of the past week –

Twinkles on her one horse “Olaf” sleigh…

I was surprised I had all the right (and enough) letters to do this!

I guess that there is an Elf on the Shelf cereal that comes out around this time of the year. The idea I saw had the elf popping out of that box instead. These Cheerios were stale, so we put the box and cereal to use…

This one is my favorite. I found some old wrapping paper and used it for a backdrop. I thought that guy by the camera just looked like a photographer. I also added a line of people waiting to get their picture taken.

Just over two weeks to go …..