It's Christmas Time, It's Christmas Time...

The Christmas season seems to go by faster every year, doesn't it? Perhaps it's just when the kids are little and keep every day full of the wonder and excitement of the coming holiday. It's been a joy to see Jonathan catch more of that excitement this year. He definitely gets the concept of presents and asks for one any time the word is mentioned. Both kids enjoy looking for "Elfie," our Elf-on-the-Shelf, every morning--who is currently watching me from the top of a kitchen cabinet while I write this. All three of us are officially on Christmas Break as of last Friday, so we have this week before Christmas to focus on some of the delights of the season. So far, the plan is:

Monday - Visit Santa!
Tuesday - Bake Christmas cookies with friends
Wednesday - Host a Christmas party for our Small Group from church
Thursday - Make and give Christmas treats to our neighbors
Friday - Create our Gingerbread House

As for our Christmas events that already happened, we started the season the weekend after Thanksgiving by decorating the house and putting up the Christmas tree. Both Lauren and Jon were excited to hang the ornaments. Jonathan loved all of Daddy's old ornaments from when he was a kid, since they were mostly cars and trucks. And Lauren was on a mission to hang every single last ornament in the box.





My Dad was able to join us for the fun this year (my mom was out of town with my sister's family) so we made an evening of it: Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, tree-decorating, and a gift for each of the kids. It has become a tradition for the kids to open their Christmas jammies on the night we do our tree-decorating.





It was so much fun, and a great way to start the season. Thanks to my Dad for capturing this family photo for us.

We had more Christmas fun the next weekend at the San Luis Obispo Holiday Parade. It was COLD, but we lasted about an hour and a half watching the small town "floats" and bands go by.



Grandpa bought the kids a Christmas cookie with lots of green frosting--hence the green lips!

Jon thought the parade was too loud and spent most of it like this:

But he did love seeing the fire trucks go by, and I loved being reminded of what a great town we live in.

A few other Christmas treats so far included watching the movie "Elf" for Family Movie Night (which Elfie brought as a gift on the first day he arrived)...

...and Gary and I got to have a fancy date at Gary's work Christmas party. It was held at the Paso Robles Inn this year and included absolutely delicious filet mignon and Murder Mystery dinner theater.

This has become an epic blog post and we need to get ready to see Santa, so I'll end it here. I hope you're enjoying this Christmas season--only 6 days left! :)