Well, I have to say I really did enjoy it. I still did some shopping and kept thinking of things I "needed" to get, but it wasn't at all stressful. I actually found myself being more generous than most years and buying for people I don't normally buy for. I don't think that would have happened had I had so much shopping to do. Overall, I just really felt cheerful all month :) I did more charitable giving this year as a result too.
We got all of our usual holiday activities crossed off and added some new ones. Here are some highlights:
Put up the tree and decorated it the day after Thanksgiving.....yes, in jammies. Why? Because that's what they wanted to do at 7:30am!
Rylee wrote to Santa. As I mentioned before, she will not go see him, which is okay with me, so we send a letter.
Our Elf on the Shelf returned...she wrote a letter to Rylee letting her know that Santa received her wish list. Some how we managed to remember to move her every single night this year!!!!
Disney on Ice and Festival of trees. The latter was new this year, but will be on our annual "to do" list.
The Blenders concert with my dad. This was my 2nd year attending and I hope I never miss it in the future!! It was at Hoyt Sherman place this year -- my first time in that building...beautiful!!!
Gingerbread House with Daddy. I never participate in this one....this is a Daddy thing. I was impressed with Rylee's creativity...she added a fire place with fire! Wyatt lasted about 5 minutes.
Cut-out sugar cookies. I tried a gluten free recipe this year and it was amazing!!! We all loved them!! My mom joined us and hopefully will be able to every year. Wyatt frosted one cookie, while Rylee helped with the entire process from mixing the dough to rolling it out, to cutting, to frosting many cookies --- for some reason she would only eat the cookies I frosted....hers had way too many sprinkles :)
A friend and I did some Christmas candy baking together this year. It was so much more fun with a friend and we plan to make this a tradition!!
We made it out several nights to look at Christmas lights. I am beyond impressed with all the festive light displays in my small community!! We are even blessed to have an amazing display that is set to music. I've seen videos of this sort of thing, but witnessing it in person was incredible!! We were all speechless....just watched in awe for about 15 minutes. Hopefully we can see it one more time before the season ends.
Our library had a Winter Festival night for the kids. They were to wear their jammies. It ended up being a really cute Polar Express event. The kids received tickets that looked like the ones from the movie (Stamped with "BELIEVE" on them). They walked in a line on railroad tracks made from construction paper, then sat for a reading of the story. They got to get up and dance several times to music from the movie. There were also 2 adorable crafts they made, as well as a station to make reindeer food and eat cookies :) It was about an hour long and Rylee was so sad when it was over. She wanted it to last longer and she knew they only read a portion of the book....she wanted to finish it! All the kids received a bell (like in the movie) at the end.
Something else new for us this year, was a Christmas concert for Wyatt's daycare center. His class only sang 1 song and he was THAT KID who cried hysterically through the entire song. My dad came to watch and he and James felt so bad for Wyatt. My dad kept telling me not to make him go up on stage. But if I'm being honest, it was a little entertaining :) It's not like the other 2 year olds were singing anyway, so none of the parents missed hearing their child sing. The three year olds were super cute though....they sang 6 songs!! I couldn't believe the difference one year makes!
James and I attended our first ever (or at least in 5 years) adult Christmas party. One of our neighbors invited all of the neighbors within a mile or two radius over last weekend. It was the first time we had met most of them. We thoroughly enjoyed it. It was so great to meet everyone finally!! James even found many things in common with several of the men, which was great!
Tomorrow evening we will head to my aunt's house in WDM to stay the night. My family has been having Christmas Eve at her house for as long as I can remember. I always look forward to it more than anything else during the season. It's so nice to have everyone together, have a nice meal, see the Christmas decorations I remember from her house as a child, and of course, open presents.
On Christmas Day, it will just be the 4 of us in the morning....opening presents and eating sweets for breakfast. James' parents will join us in the afternoon. I don't usually cook (or do anything for that matter) on Christmas Day, so we will have a frozen lasagna meal. I always look forward to a day where we can't go anywhere and we just spend the day relaxing and enjoying each other.
Hope you all are enjoying the season too. Have a very Merry Christmas!!!
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