Christmas Festivities

Christmas holidays are always a blur of activities - especially with young kids! Here are some of those activities that have kept us so busy lately.

During the week of Thanksgiving, we always make a point of stopping in at the Festival of Trees. This is a wonderful event with dozens of beautifully decorated trees, a train, yummy gingerbread cookies, Santa, and crafts for the kids. Ethan insisted that this was his favorite tree of the entire exhibit and insisted on having his picture taken with it. We have no idea why this one is his favorite as there were so many little kid friendly trees decorated with games or in a movie theme!

Olivia posing by the Grinch exhibit. Both kids LOVE that movie and will routinely sing the songs from the show (although their version is a bit funnier!).

The black Star Wars Christmas tree has again been decorated. For those of you who do not know the story, Joe has been collecting Star Wars ornaments for about 15 years now. In the past, he would only be able to select a few to display so that there would be room for the rest of the ornaments. Now that we have more living space, we dedicate an entire (black!) tree to his collection. This year the showpiece is the Yoda tree-topper complete with a lighted lightsaber.

Did I mention that Joe loves Star Wars?

Now on to decorating the real tree. This one is in our front room and has the rest of the ornaments on display. Here are the kids hanging the first ornaments. We have observed that Ethan certainly had a favorite hanging spot on the tree as there are about 15 ornaments hanging from 3 branches.

The Santa hat tree topper. Joe and I started that tradition when we were first married (11 years ago!) as we did not have a star/angel/other topper. We always said the hat would be temporary, but I think I now need to realize that it is a tradition.

More ornaments!

After all decorating is done, the gingerbread house becomes a priority. We learned this year to assemble the house earlier in the day so that it has a chance to harden in time for the kids to decorate. Last year the house did not hold together so well!

Olivia took this picture. Her skills are definitely improving, as long as she aims first, and THEN you position yourself within the frame.

The two gingerbread artists.

What to do on a very very cold, snowy, icy, windy night? Go to the mall! No lines! Here are the kids visiting Santa. Olivia had quite a few items to tell him about from her list, and Ethan was able to remember some toys, too (even if Santa couldn't quite understand him!). I wonder how much longer Olivia will believe in Santa? I am thinking that the end is near for this belief. She asked Joe earlier in December if Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Great Pumpkin are in fact real. She was satisfied with the answer of the first 2 being real, but the last was made up for a television show!

The Christmas train at the mall. Since there were no lines, the kids were able to take a much longer than usual turn on this!

This past Saturday we also hosted a Christmas party for 60+ friends. The house was a complete mess of toys, but that is a small price to pay for the great time we had! Here is Olivia and some of her closest friends making crafts.

Just a small glimpse of the chaos. This was after starting some holiday shows for the kids, so they had begun to settle down some.