Christmas! The most wonderful time of the year is here, and I am so excited! Andrew is at a great age for holidays. He seems to remember some from last year, and he's really into traditions. I'm so excited to experience the joy through his eyes. I have to admit - we've been listening to Christmas carols for a couple weeks now. I always try to wait until after Thanksgiving, and I always cave the week or two before. This year it was especially difficult to resist, since Andrew has been requesting songs. He always asks me to "make the car sing" Jingle Bells and "Watch Out for Santa" (Santa Claus is Coming to Town). It's amazing how listening to Christmas carols can bring back such strong memories and feelings from Christmases in my childhood. That's what I want for our boys - goodness knows our house not perfectly decorated and I'm rarely on the ball enough to send out Christmas cards, but I want them to have that feeling of joy and wonder that I always had (and still have) at Christmas time. I read a blog post about not creating traditions just for the sake of traditions, and while I agree with that, it's difficult not to get excited with all the ideas out there (hello, Pinterest). So I'm going to try to fit in a lot of great experiences, and not get disappointed if we don't get to everything. Here are some of the things I'm excited about for this holiday season...
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| Christmas 2011 |
- The teacher in me loves to have out holiday and seasonally appropriate reading material, and Andrew (and Ben) already have quite the collection of Christmas books. One thing that I started the year that Andrew was born was to buy one nice, hardcover Christmas book each year and label it with the year. I also like to give one to Bronc (and now Teague) as gifts. I know it will be nice in a few years to look back at the books and remember the year when we got them.
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| Christmas 2010 |
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| This isn't Andrew's tree, but was too cute not to include! |
- Last year we started a fun tradition with Andrew. Knowing that he would be really into the tree and ornaments, we purchased a small tree for him. This was his tree, that he got to decorate however he wanted, and was able to touch it as much as he wanted without limits. This helped him keep his hands off of the big tree, because he knew he got to do whatever he wanted with his own tree. My mom brought over some old (non-breakable) ornaments, and he loved it. This is one of my favorite Christmas memories from last year and now this year. We brought the tree out this weekend and purchased a few more ornaments and a star for the top. Andrew has LOVED it! He decorated it on his own and loves to sit in there and look at it! You can tell which ornaments are his favorite because he puts them all on the same branch! There are about 5 red (of course!) ornaments on one branch near the top. It really is beautiful, and I love that he gets so excited about it. We'll see what happens next year when Ben is mobile... I'm thinking we may have to purchase a tree for him, too! I'll hopefully get around to taking pictures of his tree and posting pictures of it!
- Every year since Andrew was born, we have gotten together with the Newtons for a Christmas Cookie evening. It started with one baby, when Andrew was almost 8 months old, and now we'll have four sweet little boys there!
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| Both boys were in high chairs last year - now they're big boys! |
- I can't wait for Andrew to visit Santa! Last year was the first year (since he was a baby), that we actually went and he got to sit in Santa's lap. We were at an outdoor trail of lights in Burnet with my parents and they had Santa there. The line wasn't long and we were able to take our own pictures. We waited for a little bit and talked up Santa. He was 2 1/2 and knew about Santa from books and things, but you could tell he was a little scared when we got to the front. He looked back at us and looked like he took a deep breath and steeled himself and then got into Santa's lap. It was so cute! I doubt he'll have any trouble this year, seeing as he's not at all shy - with neighbors, strangers, workers in stores, waiters... I think he'll probably try to talk Santa's ear off!
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| Christmas 2010 |
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| Christmas 2012 |
- Overall, I'm just excited for all the fun and memories that we'll make as this first Christmas as a family of four. I feel so blessed that I get to experience the joy of Christmas with our sweet boys. Here are some cute pictures of Christmases past... I can already tell that it is going to be difficult to get pictures this year, at least of Andrew. Whenever I get the camera out he shouts, "No pictures!" Oh no! Well, at least Ben doesn't mind modeling for me! And I apologize for the pictures being out of order - I've been working on this post for about 3 weeks now and am finally getting around to posting it, and I definitely don't have the time or energy to move the pictures! It's pretty clear what Christmas they are all from, and it's fun to look back and see tiny little Andrew! I'll have to do some comparison pics with Ben soon, too!
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