Jell-O Christmas Cutouts

Speaking of annual traditions, I decided to skip the decorated sugar cookies this past Christmas and just do cutouts with Jell-O instead.

But then! Arctic Blast showed up and we ended up making the pesky high-maintenance cookies anyway. Cabin fever will do weird things to a person's sense of reason.

So this Jell-O. This all natural, straight from the source Jell-O.

You know, part of what makes these kinds of experiences so fun is all the "discussing" that is done over I Already Washed My Hands and Why Do I Always Have To Go Last and I Get The Best Cutter It Is Mine I Saw It First. That's always followed shortly by A Good Round Of Shoving and Crying Over The Broken Jell-O and His Piece Is Bigger Than Mine and Why Can't We Eat Another Piece Of Jell-O You Never Let Us Have Any Fun.

I have no doubt that all of my kids' memories will involve some level of trauma.

We've finally learned that we have to divide and conquer, and lay out 387 ground rules before the fun even begins. There's usually a coin toss involved, or when we're feeling lazy, a simple "pick a number between 1 and 10."

Stand back and admire our fiiiiiine parenting skills.

We also make sure to contain the Little Miss Bizzy in her chair:

We weren't born yesterday, people! We are ON TO THEM!

Speaking of acting childish, it had been so long since Pa and I had had finger Jell-O, but we both knew what to do upon taking our first bite.

Swishitbackandforthinourmouthsrealfast.

Real mature.

Here are a few of the Jell-O cutouts, before being mangled by the kids or the parents:

We'll just call these "Jell-O Cutouts 2008." I'm certain you'll be seeing something quite similar around Christmas '09.