My favorite Christmas to-date

Spider man, Shopkins and Trolls, Oh my!  These were the gifts that filled our living room this Christmas. Wyatt is actually more into Batman, but didn't seem to mind all of the Spiderman things he got. In fact, he was overjoyed with every single gift....except the underwear.

This was definitely my favorite Christmas yet, since being a little kid myself. Both of my children were finally old enough to understand the whole Santa thing and get excited about it. Rylee's imagination as she discussed Santa and the North Pole all month long, was just precious. She made me such a believer, I almost forgot I had a job to do Christmas Eve night.

We spent Christmas Eve day with my family at my aunt's house as we have done since I was a kid. We had a delicious lunch, opened presents, and enjoyed each other's company. My two favorite moments from the day, were my 5 1/2 year old niece's reaction to the "fake" glasses she got from Grandma (she's been asking for them for months!!).  "I CAN SEE!!!", she said when she put them on. My other favorite moment was when myself, my husband, my brother and sister-in-law decided to show our kids that we used to dance to songs like "Bye Bye Bye".  Being goofy was a lot of fun! I'm so glad we got it on video...my brother is a great dancer (wink, wink)!!!  You can see the video on my Facebook page.

Around 4:30 that afternoon, Rylee learned about the Santa radar and saw that he was crossing the ocean to the United States.  She started to excitedly panic that we needed to get home, QUICK! She had her coat and shoes on before the rest of us even knew what she was talking about. Once we finally left about an hour later, she watched the sky intently, looking for the sleigh. I remember doing that exact same thing on the way home from my aunt's house as a kid. Both Rylee and Wyatt fell asleep in the car by 6:00 and stayed asleep once we got home.  I was worried about how early they would wake up in the morning.

After James and I had everything set up and went upstairs to go to bed, I decided we needed to block off the stairway, so the kids couldn't go down without us in the morning.  I knew they would be very excited to see if Santa came and probably wouldn't even come into our room to get us....and their reaction is just something I did not want to miss!

Okay, so they easily could have gone through this, but I figured it would at least be a reminder for them to come get Mom and Dad first. 

Rylee ended up coming to our room around 4:45 am. She was, as I predicted, bouncing off the walls with excitement as she woke us up.  We told her we wanted to wait for Wyatt....that didn't go over well. After making her wait for 30 minutes and still no signs of Wyatt waking, we decided to go ahead and take her downstairs....a little kid shouldn't have to wait to see if Santa came, we thought.

She was delighted to see the presents, the full stockings, the empty cookie plate and milk glass. We played with her gifts from the day before while we waited for Wyatt.  About 20 minutes later I heard him stirring. I went to his room and he sat up and asked, "Did Santa come?!"

By 6:30 we had all of the presents opened. Wyatt's reaction to all of them was priceless. He was very vocal as he opened each gift. Lots of "Wow!" and "I always wanted this!". All day long he told me, "Wasn't it so fun opening presents this morning?!?!?!"

Rylee, having not asked for much, liked all of her gifts too. She had a couple of very enthusiastic moments and remembered to say "Thank you" right after opening each gift (she even thanked Santa for his gifts).

Last year, I can recall that the kids didn't really care about their gifts about 30 minutes after opening them. This year though, the toys were played with all day and are continuing to be played with today. Yay!!  We got 3 new games from Santa, for the family.  They are all active games that require you to get up and move. We've played each one multiple times...that was probably the best gift!  It was nice to have new things to do together as a family. I even laughed so hard, I cried during one game!

Pancake Pile-up is a pretty fun game for young kids (and their parents too)!

I'm already sad that Christmas is over and am making notes for next year. I know these years of magical Christmases will be few, but I'll cherish them for now. So much fun seeing Christmas through a child's view.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas too!

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I love Christmas. This year, the holiday season has been especially fun as my kids are both old enough to understand it now and are participating so eagerly. I also love the fact that Rylee, who had a super long wish list last year and assigned a toy to everyone who buys her gifts, has decided to just be surprised this year.  My heart melted a bit when she said that. To make sure she didn't change her mind, I threw away the toy catalogs that came in the mail, before they made it into the house. Being surprised is fun, I think. And there are so few surprises in life anymore.

Speaking of surprises, I welcomed mother nature's surprise snow this morning!  Okay, so maybe it wasn't a surprise to anyone else, but James and I had NO IDEA that it was going to snow. In fact, we had planned to take down the trampoline today before the snow comes....oh well.  The snow makes it feel even more Christmasy now.  Though, I really didn't mind the slightly warmer weather we had the day before.

I got a little carried away with my Christmas decorating this year, I think. It's been fun though, and James has been enjoying helping with it too (I think). I've wanted ice cycle lights on my house for as long as I can remember and I finally got them this year!  Thank you, James!!

I couldn't resist decorating multiple trees this year either. We of course have the tree with all of the random ornaments that have been given to us, or made by us. I've always wanted to have a red and gold tree though, as well as a white and silver one.  So, I bought two more. Additionally, I have two smaller trees that I just put lights on and nothing else. I love a dark house being lit by nothing but the glowing Christmas tree lights.

Basement tree.

Dining room tree

Living room tree

Basement fireplace

Living room fire place

We are a little obsessed with black and red checker print this year

Yes, I already have presents wrapped. I'm 98% done with my Christmas shopping.  I didn't start until November (which was late for me), but I got it all done in just a couple of weeks. This was the easiest year I've ever had with Christmas shopping.  I loved it this year. The only problem with being done early is that now of course Wyatt is asking for things that we didn't get him.  Hopefully he'll enjoy them all the same.

We kicked off our holiday season with a trip to the Festival of Trees and Lights and Disney on Ice the day after Thanksgiving. This was our 4th year to attend the ice show and mine and Rylee's 2nd year doing both.  I think this will be our tradition going forward.  It's such a fun way to start the holiday; not to mention the quality family time we get to have together.

This past Friday night, we participated in our town's annual holiday festival, where we watched the tree lighting, listened to carolers, filled a bucket full of cookies in the cookie walk, and saw Santa and Mrs. Claus arrive on a fire truck. Neither of the kids like Santa, so we just watched from afar. It's such a neat event for a small town.

I've already had one holiday party. A work party with a gift exchange that was a lot of fun. Despite my gifts getting stolen from me a dozen times or more, I still went home with a movie theater gift card I'm excited to use! I even won $15 on my scratch-off lottery ticket that our director handed out.

This week will be busy with holiday events. My good friend and I will be baking Christmas goodies for our 2nd annual bake day and then we are hosting James' family over the weekend. On Sunday, James is taking his little princess on a formal date to see The Nutcracker ballet for the first time. I'm not sure which of the two of them is more excited!

I'm hopeful that this month will go slower than November did and we will have plenty of time to take in the holiday. I'm trying to be mindful of each day and enjoy the season's many blessings. After all, it is the most wonderful time of the year.

I hope your holiday is off to a great start and you are able to enjoy all of the blessings the season brings as well.

Merry Christmas!