It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

It all started Friday afternoon, when my daughter took the 6 year old ice skating. I took advantage of the time he was gone to cut out a matching set of pajama pants for the him and his 2 year old brother.

Since my sewing room is in the garage, I only got as far as cutting them out. I still had a house full of napping daycare kids so I couldn't go out to sew. I'll have to take some time one of these evenings to get them finished and wrapped. It's a tradition for everyone to have new pajamas to wear on Christmas eve.

Isn't this fabric just the cutest for little boys? It's flannel and covered with construction vehicles - including a cement mixer, which Daddy drives. Perfect. Believe it or not, I found it at Walmart!

Saturday morning we spent a couple hours hiking through the woods - pulling the two year old in a sled, looking for the "perfect" tree. This is a holiday tradition we always look forward to, but usually get to a little earlier in the month. With all the work to be done to prepare for the house move though, there just hasn't been time. Anyway, after slogging through knee deep snow for two hours, we finally found the tree we wanted less than 50 yards from where we parked the truck. *sigh* We decorated it Sunday afternoon. It's always Dad's job to do the lights.

When we opened the box of decorations, the two year old spotted the stockings - or as he screamed, "BOOTS!!!!" Of course he had to put them on right away.

They didn't fit, but he loved them anyway.

It was all good until an ornament got hooked onto his clothes and every step he took, the ornament hit him in the leg. It was as if he thought the "dog" was chasing him. Mass hysteria for a minute, but very funny!

It's a tradition here for the kids to do all the tree decorating. They take it very seriously.


I was surprised how well the two year old did at putting the ornaments on. He loved all the "BALLS!"

He's admiring his work here. He put both the green and blue balls on, as well as the sledding dog. Later, we moved the dog higher up because of the daycare kids. It is one we've had for 18 years. I'll do a "tour of ornaments" post soon and tell you all about them.

Here's what we ended up with. The goal when we left the house was to get a "tall, skinny tree." We have a ten foot ceiling, and were hoping to find a tree about 4 feet wide. Instead we ended up with a bush that is fatter than it is tall. It's probably at least 6-7 FEET wide. So I'm thinking next year, I'll request a "short, fat tree." :)

After all the excitement of gathering the tree Saturday morning, we had a Christmas parade Saturday night. My daughter was on a youth group float with her friends, and my 6 year old was on the ski club float. I got talked into joining the parade after they passed me, so I climbed on with my son. It was the first parade I've been in since my high school marching band days. I was surprised how many people came out in the dark for a parade. There were some incredible floats though. My personal favorite was a semi with a flat-bed loaded with snow hills and snowmachines similar to how Santa's reindeer line up. It was covered with Christmas lights. Very cool. After the parade, the library hosted a Christmas party where there was hot chocolate, cider and a huge assortment of cookies. The kids got to make shrinky dink ornaments (that was a blast from the past), pipe cleaner Christmas trees, and "stained glass" votive candles. They used glue and tissue paper for the stained glass effect. It was a ton of fun, a very good, and very long day.