We thought it would give us a chance to get to know the parents of all the kids that spend so much time in our back yard if we had a Croker Heights

Christmas party. A very good time was had by all.

It started snowing first thing this morning, which added even more magic to the anticipation for the guests to arrive.

The highlight of the party was rock smashing– and not just any rocks, mind you. Rock breaking has been the past time of choice down in Croker Heights. They all collect rocks and break rocks and use rocks as their money, so one day I got a bug to find geodes that we might be able to break open. A little Googling and I hit the jackpot. I got a box of rocks all ready for smashing.

Aren’t they cool. Parents had fun too. It was very exciting to see what treasure lay in store. We found the best technique was to put the geodes in an old sock and gave it a whack or three. The sock helped keep all the pieces together and then the kids each had a red paper bag to keep their own pieces in. Some had bigger crystals than others, some had some iron mineral deposits, one of them had globby looking calcite instead of quartz crystals. It was way cool!

We also made graham cracker houses and ate goodies.

Merry Christmas!!