Getting Into the Christmas Spirit

I have to admit. I am a Christmas nut. I would be at home in Whooville. I LOVE Christmas. But the past few years I have started dreading all of the work and mess and stuff that goes along with Christmas. I've found myself bogged down by "having to do" this and that, scrambling to finish homemade presents the night before, feeling pressured to make all the traditional treats and then on Christmas Day feeling let down because I never got to enjoy my Christmas. So this year I changed my mindset. SIMPLIFY. Here is your fair warning : I am not doing cards this year. We will be sending an e-mail. A favorite few (grandparents etc.) will be getting a family picture. I made neighbor gifts in August. I have only 1 homemade present this year. Most of our presents are already bought. I play Christmas music and try to read Christmas stories with my kids. And we made this fun little advent calendar. I got the idea from Jenni - see the side bar. We placed little slips of paper in the pockets that have little things we want to do this Christmas. A few ideas are : hot chocolate and candy canes, video tape us singing a Christmas song, take a treat to a neighbor, cut out paper snowflakes.

Also to get us into the spirit we love to decorate for Christmas. We put up all of our decorations on Friday after Thanksgiving. Then on Saturday we went to Civitan park in downtown to help the Civitans string lights on their trees. Elementary schools then make decorations for them.

A special visitor stopped by. Abi and Tal got to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas and chatted with him for a minute.

Santa held Leah for me while Kris and I decorated another tree. I thought she would be scared as she is developing some stranger anxiety, even with members of our extended family. But she was fascinated with his beard and cuddled right in.

So Priceless.