Christmas: on the fifth day of Christmas ...

... my true love gave to me ... morning Mass with our favorite priest ... an afternoon of "gadding about" with my teen while he and the littles played "Santa's workshop" by getting the doll club-house/Nativity stable all sanded, glued and nailed to the base ready for painting. BamBam is sanding the front ...

while LegoManiac shows the back "barn door" to allow easy access and give a "stable look" when we use this for our Nativity next year.

Yes, this project is big -- the base board is 2-feet x 3-feet and the height is just over 30-inches but isn't it marvelous? The girls (Kotch and I and maybe StringBean too) will do the painting ... barn red for the exterior and green (darkened slightly with some black) for the roof. We'll then put felt pads on the bottom corners (to protect surfaces and to allow a 1/4" lip to help with lifting and moving from spot to spot). Will post pictures of the final!

And to top off this wonderful day, and since it is the Feast of St. Thomas a Becket, the man killed through the misuse of monarchial power, our family movie: the classic Becket with Peter O'Toole as the despotic Henry II and Richard Burton as the reformed Thomas Becket. What a great movie!

Hope you had as good a Fifth Day of Christmas!

St. Thomas a Becket, pray for us!