Among Us

This evening I took four kids to the Family Art Night at a library near us. The four kids I brought were ages 8, 10, 12, and 14, and the other kids who attended were definitely younger. First the kids did a scavenger hunt and then they rotated between two art stations. Nadia and Evanna opted to browse the books instead. They did join the rest for a sort of "musical chairs" type art activity. The program was supposed to last for one hour, but we left at 5:45 so I could take Nadia and Evanna to a social at church. The youth group hadn't hosted any events since since February. They were playing an in real life version of Among Us. I guess I'm officially an old fogey, because I had NO idea what Among Us is. Oliver piped up that he had played the game with Camden (friend in our neighborhood). Had the youth pastor given more advance notice about the Among Us event, I wouldn't have signed the kids up for the art night at the library. We left the art night before it was done, and the girls showed up about 5 minutes late to the Among Us event. Evanna is spending the night, and we don't have any plans to leave the house tomorrow. 

Many of our annual Christmas traditions won't be taking place this year. We're not going to see a candy cane demonstration at Purity Candy, not going to make a hand blown glass ornament in Corning or attend the Rockwell Museum, not going to get together with any of my relatives because they all live outside the state of Pennsylvania, not going to attend the Christmas program at the large church in Camp Hill, not going to be singing Christmas carols at the Warrior Run Manor, etc. The kids have always done their shopping for Christmas gifts for their family at AWANA. Since that won't be happening, I guess they won't be giving gifts to anyone unless they make them, and my kids have never really made gifts before. We have usually baked pumpkin bread or Christmas cookies and given them to the kids' Sunday School teachers, choir directors, AWANA leaders, etc. Since they aren't in any choirs or AWANA right now due to COVID-19, I'm not planning on doing that either, but we ARE doing some baking this weekend for others. There is a woman in Sunbury who organizes a free Thanksgiving meal for 1,000+ people each year. She can't do it "as usual" due to COVID-19, but she's going to be distributing bagged meals this year instead. We've volunteered to make baked goods (cookies and brownies) and put them in baggies for some of the lunches. We're baking for others for Thanksgiving this year instead of Christmas. We're planning to make shortbread cookies, brownies, and thumbprint cookies. Speaking of baking, I was planning to make saffron buns next month for our celebration of the Swedish holiday - St. Lucia Day. Now I'm not so sure. Did you know that saffron is the most expensive spice? I'm trying to decide if it's worth it or not. I can get the spice more cheaply through Amazon than Walmart or Wegman's, but I'm not sure if I want to spend more than $10 on 2 grams of a spice for a bread recipe.