Santa’s Children- a Christmas Orphanage Challenge

Taxis in the front garden? Why not?!
Hello, and welcome to a departure from my legacy challenge- I decided to attempt a version of the Orphanage Challenge- rules here. My plan was to use the children as fresh new townie fodder after the challenge, as I recently installed new default face templates. As it’s nearly Christmas at the time of writing I created Father Christmas and his wife in CAS and the two elders are going to adopt and raise as many children as possible until they die (#Christmas). So let’s get into it!

Seriously, what is this taxi doing. I’ve never seen this before.

Simply because I felt like it, I made the Christmas pair two biological children as well. This isn’t in the rules but hey ho, the adults are meant to be non-elder and they’ll need help.

After I did enough decorating that I could be bothered with, I got this ball rolling with Mrs Clause!

YES, yes I am!

WOO! Child number one is on the way.

The people in this house previously left a large number of dead plants. I thought it would be a good idea to keep the garden as a source of fun for the children, as I imagined they will *need* it.

These two spent their precious child-free time hiding their diaries from the welcome wagon instead of preparing. Good job, guys.

Child number one I decided should be a child, not a toddler or baby. I’ll take it turns to adopt each ‘type’, but wanted to start with the easiest XD

The challenge starts here, you two! Good luck, and get me lots of points 🙂

Little Gerard here is the first to be adopted- welcome, Ger!
+5 points

He somehow already dislikes his older sister. Hmmm.

Parents again!

Awww. Surely Father and Mother (?) Christmas are the best parents?

I got Santa to make the order call for child number two.

Here’s the layout of the house, before it gets too dirty and untidy- ground floor…

…and the first floor. The second floor doesn’t exist yet, despite the existence of those stairs. But boy will we need the space very soon!

Toddler time- let’s strap in.

This *very* happy toddler is Rachel.
+5

What a cutie.

The next day, baby time. I’m trying to adopt a child every day, and I’ve got the larger households mod in place too. I’m going for quantity over quality in this challenge!

Ugh I didn’t want to have to name the babies- welcome Steven, anyway.
+5

The social worker setting a fine example there. Why not put the baby in the fireplace?

Biological grown up daughter Lucy randomised as a family sim so soon started pining for a boyfriend, so I hired the matchmaker to sort her out.

The life of Father Christmas these days is not very glamorous at all.

Teaching eldest Gerard to study effectively…

The next child is a readhead called Eloise (popular name in my neighbourhood, apparently)
+5

Cuddles with mum! So wholesome.

Gerard quickly made best friends with his dad- chaching!
+30

The first birthday is the toddler birthday of Steven…

Well then. Interesting choices have been made.

Lucy, apparently not liking the look of her old date, enticed an older, married man to her bed! (For readers of The L’Amour Legacy, this is Phillip’s brother in law).

Ooh, the first toddler skill is the best one, and little Rachel is the one to manage it. Good job, Rachel.
+10

… social services are having a laugh. As if a toddler could have hair that long XD

Loool. Anyways, this is Arche.
+5

Lucy the family sim, believe it or not. She’s been seeing this even older guy for a bit now, and has it bad for him.

So bad in fact, it was time for her to move out with him (I forget his name, I’m a great simmer).

Charlie (the other biological, grown-up Christmas child) was having his own fun, amongst looking after the growing number of his siblings.

Speaking of- welcome number 7, Miriam the sweetheart.
+5

And the next day, Amanda.
+5

When Mrs Clause can get away, she hugs each new child and it warms the cockles.

The bottom of the stairs are already getting a bit busy, unfortunately…

But not too busy for a quick wedding! I moved Lucy and her husband (who did not give us much money, I want to add) to make more room.

Rachel’s nearly a child, and I’m hoping to get some ‘good birthday’ points- fingers crossed. The mini Phoenix Wright is not one of our children, someone brought him home from school XD

Little Miriam grows up!

And Steven learns bladder control, woo!
+10

Number 9 is Cornelius- yes, Cornelius. Don’t laugh. He looks spiffy.
+5

Yaaas, Rachel learns to walk just shy of her birthday…
+10

*and* talk- this is a very good precedent!
+10

Surely this will be a good birthday? Yes, it was (and I didn’t take an after photo for some reason… -.-)
+10

You might think this happened many times in the challenge, but I didn’t actually catch that many instances, which is nice!

Charlie has a tender moment- his first kiss (?? I have questions)- with a pretty townie.

Child number 10 is the biggest mood so far. What do we call this style? Hippy-classic? Welcome Carter.
+5

It’s good to know Charlie kissed this one before heading to bed…

Of course you like nature, Carter. Hippy.

The kids are coming home horrifically tired and bored after school every day, so I did my very best with Charlie to get them into private school (which is weirdly free in the sims and sucks fun less quickly). I got really close but couldn’t schmooze this guy quite enough.

The garden is a good source of fun, like I hoped, as is the roundabout I bought.

… a good source of fun and vomit. Sorry, Eloise.

Disaster struck this evening- child number 11 is *not* on the way due to a lack of funds. Or maybe it’s the starving child. Who knows XD

But better news- Miriam made a best friend ❤ Pointieeees
+30

Child number 11, post scraping up some cash, is little Lilly. It does make me laugh that the babies sit upright like that XD
+5

Yes, Arche!
+10

Apparently Arche also learnt to walk at an unspecified time- good work!
+10

Because this challenge has become picspam of the children being adopted and not a great deal else, I throw this one in to exemplify the general state of things. Stinky and sad. It’s not fun to maintain so many kids, I do not recommend!!

Arche obviously grew up well!
+10

Steven does not. Whether he had a bad birthday *because* of his camouflage dragon onesie is unclear. He truly is a style icon.

Success! Charlie does us all a solid and gets several children into private school. Love you, Charlie ❤ No points for this, however 😦

Baby number 12 (and I clicked ‘baby’ by accident, ugh) is Sandra here. I went with very modern names, as you can tell.
+5

Time for Lily to get away from those roaches!

Oof.

Child number 13- Isabel.
+5

The house is getting veeeery full and it’s time for Charlie to fly the nest, so he proposed to his girlfriend. I’d like to call this photo ‘instagram’…

…and this one ‘reality’. Complete with sibling on the potty and mouldy cereal.

The youngest grows into a toddler (and her father’s lustrous beard).

And more exciting news- eldest Gerard becomes a teen! Unfortunately it wasn’t a good birthday, though D: No points for me here!

Cornelius bags me some though!
+30

Child number 14 is Gerard number 2. #variety. Although I guess he’s Welsh or something, with a name like Gauwyn.
+5

Loool, this was Welsh Gerard’s first act. What an idiot.
Visitor: Nice job getting sprayed, kid!

Miriam brings home the same mini-Phoenix and another strange child tags along, and she grows up badly *sobs*. At this point, it’s enough to get them into bed and change their nappies.

The homework mill is fairly successful though!

Child number 15 is Gemma.
+5

I like Cornelius- he gets the job done. More points for meeee
+10

Child number 16 is one of the last children *finally* because Father and Mrs Christmas are looking very decrepit. Welcome *Caddell* (I don’t know either). My game sure is making the most of the new CC I’ve recently given it, eh?
+5

This is another picture that sums up the state of things. Even the nanny can’t make it to the toilet.

Lots of the kids gather round for second eldest Eloise’s teen birthday (shout out to the purple alien Soymek there from my legacy, who I guess was brought home by Gerard!)

Success! Eloise is gorgeous *and* got me some points for a good birthday.
+10

And the youngest becomes a toddler. No more babies for me (thank GOD)

This here was definitely the most aggravating part of this aggravating challenge. Miriam was starving and exhausted at the same time and *would not* sit down and eat her lovely burnt spaghetti. I was properly shouting at my screen. Eveeeeentually she ate something- actually, she wolfed it down, and made me feel very relieved.

Child number 17 is the pretty evil looking Clarissa. I think her name suits her face as well!
+5

This photo shows the next most aggravating moment of this challenge. It’s Friday, the last schoolday of this challenge, probably. Schooldays are when I can get a lot of the population of this house OUT for a while. Then this happened. Snow day D: D:

Oh yes, all the children whooped in celebration. As if they want to stay in this madhouse instead of escape to school. I made an investment of several gaming machines to fight the boredom.

Child number 18 is ginger Helen. Helen is the final child, I am *very* happy to announce.
+5

Because of this- and I don’t think the Christmas pair will survive the night.

Gerard: ‘Hey Eloise, my only fellow teenager sibling. Do you think we are licensed to look after all our siblings once our elderly parents are gone?’
Eloise: *tries not to think about it*

Yep, time is up for Mrs Christmas, first. Obviously neither of them achieved their lifetime goals- they were far too busy- but what do the Christmasses represent if not selflessness?

Father Christmas had a breakdown at the very timely death of his wife, and the kids weren’t very sympathetic.

And then it was his turn. With the death of Father Christmas, the 16 remaining children and toddlers were left in the charge of the eldest two adopted children. I played them for a bit but eventually one of the little sh*ts froze outside and the social workers came and took them all away. #Christmassy
So that was my bonus, not-very-wholesome Christmas content! My score breakdown (not all points were pictured) is as follows:
Pictured: 275
Best friend with either or both parents: Rachel, Arche, Steven, Cornelius, Isabel, Lily and Sandra: 210
BFF with either or both parents: Gerard, Rachel, Arche, Steven, Cornelius, Miriam and Lily: 280
A+: Carter: 5
Child to teen birthdays: Gerard and Eloise: 40
17 children adopted: 10
Starving children: Miriam, and around 6 others I would say (it was too hard to keep track of!) -35
Total: 785 big ones
Is that a good score? Prooooobably not. I did want the chaos, but it wasn’t actually fun to maintain everyone and if I did it again for a better score, I would go for fewer children! But, a side-goal was to produce some townies with my new default face replacements, and I have 19 new ones of those (once I grew them all up into adults). So all that’s left for me to do is thank you for reading this mess, introduce you to the new townies and of course, say…

Have a fantastic Christmas/holidays and a very happy new year. Stay safe and well and I’ll see you not too long into the new year with another L’Amour Legacy update. Until then! Byeee

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