Christmas preparations

Every year we have our traditions that we do to get ready for Christmas: decorating, visiting Santa, Light the World, treats, etc. Here is some of what we did this year to get in the Christmas spirit:

We made Christmas presents for cousins. On my side of the family the cousins have one cousin they make or buy a present for. This year we actually did make all of them, which is not always the case. Ryan made a cool scarf for Peyton. It was really easy and cute.

 Rachel made Eloise a duct tape purse and hair bow, Annie made Jared a big snake that supposedly can double as a neck pillow on car trips, and Megan helped make a couple smaller snakes for Sammy to play with.

Our real estate agent emails us yearly when Santa is coming to her office nearby. It is not as busy as the mall, and we can take our own pictures for free, so we always go, though it seems to get busier every year. The kids colored while they waited.

 Annie had a letter she had written to Santa requesting specific Lego Friends sets. She did get one of them for Christmas.

 Ryan was in a bad mood that morning because he didn't want to get dressed in the clothes we were asking him to wear for our family pictures we were going to take right after Santa.

 He was fine talking to Santa, but when we wanted a picture he did his passive fighting by trying to appear sad. This is one of his better (happy-ish) pictures.

 Megan was not a fan of Santa. She didn't mind talking to him, but didn't want to sit on his lap. She liked Mrs. Claus well enough, though.

 We've been working with Rachel about her "fake" smile. :)

 All the kids:

 I pulled out most of the Christmas decorations a couple days before Thanksgiving so I could put them up while the kids were in school. We had ordered a new tree on a Black Friday special, so that and the outside lights and such waited until after Thanksgiving.
 After the Christmas decorations had come out, Ryan was really into the Santa idea. He found a Santa hat, gloves, and boots.

 And a beard. :)

 Rachel got the honor of putting the star on our huge tree.

 We thought our last tree that we threw out last year was a 9 foot tree, but looking back at the pictures we realized it was a 7.5 foot tree. That's ok, though. We like our new 9 footer. :)

In our Spanish club that we host at our house weekly we were learning about body parts, so we decided to decorate Gingerbread Men to practice. Before they could eat their cookies they had to tell us what color they had made the various parts. "La cabeza es rojo, las piernas son verdes, el estómago es amarillo..."

 Some had more detail than others, but it was really good for everyone to practice putting colors and body parts together, so we'll call it a success.

 Thankfully, a friend hosted it at her house so we wouldn't have all that gluten floating around our house making Jacob sick. We have a hard enough time at Christmas with all the gluten treats we are given, and my kids know to be careful with where they eat it, and to wash their hands afterwards (even if they do forget and have to be reminded often). So someone else hosted, and another mom baked all the cookies for us. It was really nice of them and a fun time was had by all.

Since December is the season of concerts, I've attended a few concerts of some of my young women. One was early enough that my kids could come along (bedtime is 7:30, which is usually when the concerts have barely started). This was a steel drum concert and was pretty fun, though it did last an hour, so my kids enjoyed it for the first half hour, then were asking when it would be done for the last half hour .

 My mom and I had our traditional candy making day and made 4 or 5 batches of fudge, 3 of caramel, 6 pounds of candied pecans, and some cute peppermint hearts. We decided next year we'll do chocolate covered pretzel rods, too, since they're so easy, and always a big hit.

 Megan and I got to go into Ryan's class on Gingerbread House making day. He had lots of fun and Megan enjoyed decorating her own Christmas tree, too. Just going into his class is a big treat for her. She wishes she were in kindergarten so bad.

 Megan was so proud of her pictures she colored at nursery when they had the Christmas lesson. She kept worrying when she couldn't find them, then showing them off to everyone who came over.

 She is really into coloring lately and obviously loves her bright colors.

The last day of preschool before Christmas break, Megan's class put on a short program singing and signing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Megan and most of the kids did a great job signing. One kid actually sang out loud, and 3 kids sat by their parents and cried and clung to them. Overall, an entertaining show. :)

 The last day of school before break was a half day, so when the kids got home from school I had icing waiting for them to decorate some cookies and an ice cream cone to be a Christmas Tree (I didn't want to worry about Gingerbread houses, so this was as good as it got this year).

 They had a fun time decorating and eating. They got to eat 2 cookies, and gave away the rest.

Annie always goes a little overboard with sweets:

 Look at that cute smile:

 The unpictured Christmas preparations also included fun parties for the kids at school and our ward party, and lots of Christmas movies we tried to fit in along the way. It was a great (and busy) month.