12 Days of Christmas: Day 2 - O Christmas Tree

The Twelve Days of Christmas are some of my favorite days. They are a time of relaxing and vegging. It's a time for playing with new toys, reading new books and playing video games. 

It's also a time of looking back over the year. Aswell as looking forward to the new one. 

Today I was sick so I slept late. I also folded laundry (I am determined to get it all folded before the new year), I planned for a 5k I plan to run in February, while stuffing my face with peppermints. And the kids destroyed the house. 

As I look back on this year I thought I'd share how we spent our Advent/Christmas season. It is still Christmas after all! 

We got or Christmas tree the week before Thanksgiving. We knew we'd be traveling for Thanksgiving and we wanted the tree to be up when we got home. Plus we like to start early. 

Everyone had fun running around the tree lot. It's actually one of our favorite places to visit. It's a local farm stand so it's where we get all our seasonal fresh fruit and vegetables, pumpkins and trees. 

Margaret just liked running around while I spent my time being far too picky about the perfect tree and chasing kids around. 

William helped with the chain saw. 

The kids and my mom watched from a far. 

That evening we had what Rosie called a "cookie feast" and decorated the tree. 

Even Margaret got a cookie!

Of course there was also egg nog. Which is one of our favorite holiday treats. 

This was the night we have the kids their new ornaments for the year. Obi was a happy boy when he saw his robot ornament. 

But he was really excited about his Olaf ornament from Nana   

Rosie loved her unicorn 

And Margaret seemed pretty happy about her shoe ornament. 

Even Nana got one this year.  She got a Tardis. 

And then we put all our pretty new ornaments, as well as our old loved ones, on the tree. We didn't get it all done in one evening but that's fun too. I guess that's another reason I like to start early.  That way we can take our time. 

I love decorating the tree because it reminds me of togetherness. It reminds me of all the fun memories we had as kids decorating the Christmas tree. And I hope that Obi and Rosie and Margaret grow up treasuring that togetherness too. 

I love that every year Rosie asks me to "tell the stories mommy!" Even if they are stories she's already heard, she wants to hear the special story that goes with each ornament. 

So that's how we start our Christmas season. It's always special and it's fun to build and add our own little traditions and memories. 

This year the kids and I also decorated at tree down at our new house. That was a lot of tree decorating and am so proud of them for how much they love it. 

The Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 1 - The Force is With Us

Today is the first of the Twelve Days of Christmas. 

A lot of people seem to think that the twelve days of Christmas are the twelve days before Christmas. But they aren't. The twelve days of Christmas are the twelve days after Christmas and end on January 6th, which is Kings Day, or epiphany. That is the day that traditionally marks the arrival of the wise men who came to worship baby Jesus. 

Our first day of Christmas was spent sleeping in. Tidying up. And playing with Christmas toys. The kids spent a lot of time in their bouncy house Santa brought them. 

William and I went and saw the new Star Wars movie. Of course we dressed up. 

 I'm not actually sure when the last time I saw a movie in the theater was. 

The movie was fantastic by the way. 

Merry Christmas!! 

25 Days of Ornaments: Day 25

Merry Christmas every one. I hope your day was filled with love and peace and lots of sweets. 

It was so fun going though all of our ornaments and sharing their special stories.  I realized last night that I could do another 25 days and share completely different ornaments. We have a lot of ornaments! 

This last one I wanted to share isn't actually an ornament. It's a Christmas snow globe decoration. But it is still very special. 

It was purchased years ago for a family friend but when we got it home it was so pretty that we fell in love with it and decided to keep it. 

Another gift was purchased and sent but I have no idea what it was. I just remember this one. 

This is such a pretty globe that we often leave it out all year long. And when ever we see it we think of the friend it was originally purchased for and it makes me smile. 

25 Days of Ornaments: Day 24

William and I bought this as a gift to ourselves on our anniversary this year (we went Christmas shopping on our anniversary in November). 

We bought this to put on our first Christmas tree in our first house as a reminder of what we want for our little home. 

We want our home to filled with love and joy. For it to be a peaceful place for all those who visit. We want to model ourselves after the Holy Family as best we can. 

25 Days of Ornaments: Day 23

Merry Christmas Eve Eve. 

This lovely ornament was given to us in 2012. That was the year we became Catholic and my friend who was also a teacher in the adult Catholic education class gave it to us. 

That was our first Catholic Christmas. 

25 Days of Ornaments: Day 22

When I was a kid my family had annual passes to an amusement park called Knott's Berry Farm. 

Knott's had an old western town we used to love to explore.  One of the shops was was a glass blower's shop. I used to love to watch the artists in the shop manipulate the hot glass into beautiful pieces of art. 

I don't actually remember if the above ornament came from that shop, but it makes me think of the shop and of all the time we spent there. 

We also loved the candle shop and the live theater where would watch A Christmas Carol every year. 

We have some pretty great Christmas time memories from Knott's. 

We've actually had this ornament for so long that I don't remember where it came from. 

I love the simplicity and elegance of it. And I love the memories I've attended to it. 

25 Days of Ornaments: Day 21

In 2011 we went to Disney World for the first time and my mom bought this ornament for Rosie.  

Rosie has always been a careful person. She takes her time to observe and study something before trying it. She has always been the type of person who would rather get something right the first time. She's a bit of a perfectionist. 

I think that's why she took so long to finally walk. Talking was no different. She was excellent at communicating. She used sign language let us know what she wanted and she was very selective with we words. 

While it seemed at the time like she was taking a while to talk, we now know she was just taking her time to observe and figure it out.

When she finally did start taking she was talking full sentences. 

Her first sentence was about this ornament. She walked up to it. Pointed and said " Nana gave me that." 

This ornament will always be special because it was what prompted Rosie's first of many sentences. 

25 Days of Ornaments: Day 20

In 2005 William and I had been married for a year. In that year I had made the very fascinating discovery that William can fix anything. Computers, cars, plumbing, walls, shoes.... Anything!

I am still amazed, eleven years later, at what he is able to figure out, work on and fix. 

Thank you William, for all your hard work. 

25 Days of Ornaments: Days 18 and 19

We are all sick. Yesterday was spent waiting in the urgent care waiting room or waiting for prescriptions to be filled. We all have strep and feel awful. But at least I got to do some Christmas shopping in town while I was waiting for medicines. 

That's why I didn't post anything last night. 

But here are some pretty cool ornaments to make it up to you. 

Rosie was very into dragons last year.  She still really likes them but last year she especially loved them.  We played dragons almost every day.  

She said last year that "dragons are my favorite kind of dinosaur". 

She tells me that's still true. 

 This one is William's dragon.  Each morning Rosie starts her day usually by asking "Mommy, can we be dragons today?" (Or whatever animal we are currently into). She then assigns us what type each of us is. 

Even Nana gets to be a dragon. That's why we have these very sparkly, very lived Christmas dragons on our tree.