December / Christmas 2015

The Christmas spirit was alive and well in our house this year.  As I said in a previous post, we started the season with a fun night at Wildlights at the zoo.   After that, I tried to so something a little Christmas-y every day.  We put up our tree and a few decorations.  We watched Christmas movies and classic Christmas TV shows, and read Christmas books.  We made snowflakes and hung them in Evie’s room and put Christmas clings on all of the windows.  We sang Christmas carols in car, in the bathtub and at bedtime.  We made a gingerbread house.  We wrapped shopped, wrapped Christmas gifts and went to lots of Christmas parties. 

We made an Advent Chain and I wrote down things on each link that Evie could do each day to prepare for Christmas.  Sometimes it was something fun like “Have got cocoa tonight”.  But most of the time, it was stuff like “Be kind to your brother”, “Say a prayer for a friend” or “Give your dog a snuggle”.  We tried to focus less on the material aspects of the season and more on the spiritual things.  It helped a lot that Evie’s preschool was also teaching her about the Nativity.  They even had a birthday party of Jesus.  We read the Nativity story at home and talked about why we are really celebrating Christmas.

We spent a weekend in KY and while we were there we visited the Krohn Conservatory with Kiki, Pops, Aunt Holly and Avi.  I was disappointed because I really wanted the kids to see the live Nativity there, but it didn’t open until the following weekend.  Regardless, we really had a great time.  In addition to the regular plants, the Conservatory has some beautiful Christmas poinsettias and amazing train displays.  Mitchell is really into trains right now so it was pretty awesome to watch him completely light up when we walked into the Conservatory.  His eyes were huge and he didn’t know where to look there were so many trains.  He just kept saying “Choo-Choo!  Choo-Choo!”.  Evie enjoyed exploring and wandering down the different paths and she even got to make a Christmas ornament.  After the Conservatory, we headed over to Findley Market.  There were Christmas carolers singing outside and a temporary Christmas tree lot set up in the front.  It’s been years since I’ve had a real tree and it was nice to breathe in that Christmas smell.  Pops treated the kids to a Belgian waffle treat and colored candy popcorn and they were in heaven!  After a quick lunch at Eli’s BBQ, we headed back to my parents’ house.  We ended the night with a surprise Christmas light excursion once the kids were in their PJ’s.  There was an amazing display a few streets over from my parents.  They had a place where you could donate canned goods as well so we did that and remind the kids and each other of our blessings.  Evie thought that was pretty cool.

We went to Village Lights in German Village with Grandma Rita.  Mitch was a bit of a fuss-bucket, but we still had a good time.  You can’t beat the ambiance of German Village.  They had some neat light displays and Evie even got to sit on Santa’s lap!
We made snowman Christmas cookies one night.  The break-n-bake kind because I thought they’d be easier.  But generally, nothing is easier with my kids.  :)  Evie took 9,000 years to actually put the cookies on the sheet, then Mitch wanted to help, Evie freaked out because he messed up her line of cookies and then I caught her trying to lick one.  I told her that she couldn’t do that and she stuck her tongue out at me.  I told her that if Punky the Elf saw that, he would report her to Santa and she may end up on the Naughty List.  She got upset and said (this is a direct quote) “Everyone else is nice.  But you ruined my Christmas”.  OMG.  What is she going to be like as a teenager if she like this now?!  While the cookies baked, we decided to write help Evie write her Christmas list.  Step 1 – Evie looks through the Toys R Us catalog and circles what she wants.  After about 10 minutes of circling every item on every page, I reminded her that Santa was only going to bring her a few toys.  At this point, the timer for the cookies dinged and, with that, it was like a switch was flipped in the kids. They went nuts.  Jumping, dancing, laughing, screaming.  Mitch started spinning around in circles.  Then he climbed on Pat’s back and threw up.  UGH.   What a way to end the night.  Needless to say we didn’t finish this list that night.  Evie was so excited when I suggested that she bring a few cookies to share with her friends at Titi’s house the next day.

We made the trip to see Santa at the Worthington Mall.  Evie was acting shy, but did talk to Santa a little. Mitch waltzed right up, gave Santa a high five and then said “I pooped”.  I was mortified.  Santa just chuckled.  No picture was taken.  Geez!  For the record, his diaper was clean and dry.  We attempted to get a Christmas picture, but the results were less that desirable.  I’m thinking of changing Mitch’s name to “The Blur” because that’s about all he is my pictures these days.  The child never stops moving!

We did our best to make this Christmas season a special one for our kids.