December preparations

This December was such an exciting and magical one for the kids.  Seems like being ages 2 and 5 is pretty much ideal for making December a month where we wandered through a magical time of excitement and anticipation.

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The day after we got home from Texas post-Thanksgiving, we went out to Jung’s and got our tree (a balsam fir again).  The kids took all of 30 seconds to pick it out.  As we have in past years (and as Andrew remembered that we had done in past years), we went to Culver’s afterward for lunch.  These kids sure do love their Culver’s.  Andrew has recently discovered chicken fingers, and he longs for his vanilla custard with cookie dough sprinkles on top.

After getting back home, we got it up right away.  The kids were so excited to help get the decorations up from the basement and to help decorate the tree and house.

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Bowser likes when it’s Christmas tree time too.  He likes drinking from the tree water:)

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Here’s Andrew putting up the lights.  He looks so grown up with his short hair!

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There’s Sylvia decorating her one square foot of the tree.

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The result of her decorating efforts.  That spot was well-covered!

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Later on… so pretty!

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Here’s a little one-foot tree that I gave to Andrew to put in his room.  He decorated it by putting all the little ornaments on the top.  So cute:)

11-28_11_ChristmasTree_038I loved seeing how delighted the kids were to explore my Christmas decorations.  The music boxes were a big hit as was anything with Santa on it.  And the kids really enjoyed playing with the nativity this year.

12-25_11_Christmas-Day_013 After supper most nights, we read some of our Christmas books.  The Grinch, The Night Before Christmas, The Polar Express, My Wonderful Christmas Tree, and Christmas Magic were all big hits this year.  We had Christmas music (most of it jazz, piano, Celtic, or world) playing most afternoons.  We baked cut out cookies and Linzer squares and spritz cookies and magic bars.  Several evenings in December, we piled the kids in the car after dinner and drove around enjoying all the beautiful Christmas lights.  We shopped almost exclusively online except for some last-minute store-shopping.

It was a fun-filled month.   An active month.  The Christmas Eve and Day celebrations were a great culmination to our month of planning and preparations.  Hope your December was a good one too!