A new kind of Christmas. It was definitely a different experience "being" Santa Claus this year, as well as being away from my family for the first time on Christmas.
Christmas eve we made cookies for Santa with the kids. Then they went to mass, after we changed them into their Christmas pjs and all piled into one car and took them to see Christmas lights. They loved it! They were so fascinated and regularly shouted instructions to, "Stop!" or "I can't see! Move up please." Driving around looking at Christmas lights is one of the things I have always enjoyed doing with my family and it is definitely one of my favorite memories so far with these children. We put out cookies and milk. Our 6-year-old dictated a letter to Santa and we left carrots and water for the reindeer.
On Christmas morning we had to wake up the older two, so we brought them out one at a time to watch their reaction to the presents. Every one of them did not know what to think. They just kind of stood there and looked at the presents, than ran to check the letter and of course the carrots. I don't think any of them knew what to expect when we kept telling them Santa was bringing presents. We had waffles with whip cream and Christmas sprinkles but our kids don't really like anything new and thought it was weird. So they wouldn't eat until we gave them plain waffles with just syrup. All the kids opened presents in their pjs and we just played with the new toys all morning. After nap we got dressed and helped the kids make a gingerbread house while we finished Christmas dinner.
Everyone ate lots of food and we watched Christmas movies and played with toys until bedtime. It was a very joy-filled Christmas!
Our Christmas tree. We did not want to buy a tree topper so we used one of our Barbie dolls and wrapped fabric around her :)
The wreaths are made out of the kids handprints and we set up a little snow village.
The awesome advent calendar my mom made for me. There were only 2 days left at this point otherwise there were cute little cans on each square. This was the kids favorite thing. They always asked to "Check the calendar." My mom put special surprises in each can for the kids.
Mittens the kids decorated hung over our kitchen table.
It is kind of blurry but in the background you can see our stockings. I couldn't put a close up picture because they have the kids names' on them. We had Christmas lights everywhere downstairs!
Snowflakes we made and hung around the living room.
Crazy Christmas lights.
Our tree Christmas morning :)
Opening presents in their cool Christmas pjs!!
Putting together our giant foam ABC puzzle after dinner in new clothes from Santa.
