Happy Holidays!

In case we ran out of cards before getting to you (sorry, more than 75 cards was out of the budget) here's our card from this year.

Here's the note that we included with the cards:

You may be wondering why we chose to feature oxen on our holiday card this year. The reason is simple. Doc and Blue (Doc’s horns go down, Blue’s horns go up) are one of the two teams of oxen at Old Sturbridge Village, an 1830s recreation village. OSV was an important part of our lives in 2013 as, to date, we visited 39 times this year (there may be another visit post-Christmas). 25 of those times were consecutive weekly visits. On our many visits we’ve watched the animals grow (plus we’ve learned the names of all of the animals that have names), helped plow a field, swept out a bake oven, made tin biscuit (cookie) cutters, pet chickens, sheep, and the calf, been photographed for the local paper, harvested ice on the mill pond (Mr. Chris even has a cameo in one of OSV’s promotional videos), eaten lots of cookies, watched musical performances (and particularly enjoyed fifes), took many wagon, stagecoach, and river boat rides, learned the names of many of the interpreters, learned why the animals on this card are technically steers and not oxen (they aren’t called oxen until they are fully trained and these are still learning), helped cut and stack wood, picked and sorted potatoes, toured the root cellar, watched a Naturalization Ceremony, learned how to command a team of oxen to turn slightly left vs. a sharp left (“haw to me” vs. just saying “haw”), watched demonstrations at the sawmill, gristmill, and carding mill, watched a Revolutionary War reenactment, toured the costume storage building, cooked a period meal using period methods, watched blacksmith, shoemaker, tinsmith and print shop demonstrations, threshed grain, watched animals be harvested, dressed up as Doc for Halloween, and so much more. Needless to say, OSV was a big part of our year!

What else did we do? Bennett and Mr. Chris went sledding for the first time, we continued with ice skating lessons, had our 10th Annual Pinewood Derby, went swimming, potty trained in 4 days, had a great cardiology visit (Bennett’s heart continues to do well), celebrated 10 years of marriage, Bennett had his first haircut, we raised money for Boston Children’s Hospital, and Bennett turned three and had a Curious George birthday party.