Christmas Season

The sprint between Thanksgiving and Christmas is always a wonderful time - decorating, parties, baking, church program, meeting Santa, and so much more!  Here is a taste of what we did...

The Star Wars tree.  This year we had two Star Wars tree - one for the regular sized ornaments, and a mini tree for the smaller ornaments.  And both are completely full!

Joe and I are not fans of Jar Jar Binks, but Olivia and Ethan like him.  We "allowed" them to put him in the front of the tree, but only if it is apparent that he will meet his doom!

This year we did Peanuts themed doghouses for our gingerbread  houses.  Olivia decorated her Snoopy with a "snow blanket" and I decorated mine as Rudolph.

And then the boys decorated theirs as Super Heroes!  Ethan covered Snoopy in green and purple and called him the Hulk.  Joe decorated his Snoopy as Iron Man.  Sigh.

Olivia's Hoogland Theater group spent a fun night caroling in downtown Springfield during their Holiday Walks.  Here they are joined in the Old State Capitol by Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln.

Ethan attended our church's Breakfast with Santa - he is in the front row lying down in a green shirt, listening to the story of St. Nicholas.

This year we stopped by the Springfield Botanical Gardens to check out their 50s style poinsettia display.  The kids actually had a lot of fun running around this room and feeding the birds and fish in their greenhouse.

Time to decorate the traditional tree!

The kids at their school parties!  Made even more special this year for Olivia as this is her final school Christmas party.  Here is Ethan making candy cane reindeer.

And Olivia being decorated as a Christmas tree and successfully putting on a Rudolph nose that was attached to a piece of string in her mouth (she had to swing her head back and forth to get it on her nose).

Ethan again meeting Santa - this time at the Hoogland Center for the Arts.

Olivia's Hoogland Theater group participated in three "A Very Hoogland Christmas" shows the weekend prior to Christmas.  Olivia has a fantastic time being on stage!  In the first picture she is exactly in the middle.

Singing and dancing to her favorite song of the show - "Don't Be a Jerk, It's Christmas" (from SpongeBob Square Pants Christmas show).

Olivia and Ethan dressed for their church Christmas program.

Olivia had a speaking role as a host in their church program.  She also sang a song with a trio of girls.

Ethan played Joseph in the program, and was very proud to be selected for this role.

Every day from December 1-24, the kids open their Lego advent calendar and chocolate advent calendar before breakfast.  They love this tradition.

Sugar cookie baking and decorating was our final Christmas tradition before the big day.

Olivia's snowglobe cookie.

Ethan's Hulk cookie.

The final results of the cookies.  As you can see, some of our decorating is traditional (trees, bells, candy canes) and other cookies are not decorated traditionally (Hulk, turning a stocking into a periscope, ugly Christmas sweater Grinch cookie, and one that says "Joe" all over it).