Finishing Up Christmas

This is, like, overdue. Let's pick up on Christmas Eve. So while the boys were awake, we were very busy tracking Santa to find out when he would be arriving.

This app is freaking amazing. Every time we checked it, Santa was, of course, closer. And since Santa does not deliver gifts when you are awake, there was an increasing sense of urgency to get to bed. #GENIUS

 We read the Polar Express, which is a tradition from my childhood.

And did the cookies-and-milk thing.

After the boys were in bed, I mean, first things first.

And then Santa came!

Which brings us to December 25. If you want to see how annoying kids can be on Christmas morning, click here.

General pictures of ensuing madness:

After this it was off to Grandma and Grandpa's in NY. Lots of football and hockey stuff made for two very happy boys!

It's February 13 right now (I'm backdating this post) so this seems like forever ago! We did more traveling than usual this year and after NY (Jason's side), we headed to VT (my side)!

Incomplete without an Uncle Erik pile-on!

Historically I go into the details, like "then we went to lunch, and then went skating," etc etc but since pictures are worth a thousand words, I'm going to let those do the work on this post because Christmas was like 7 weeks ago lol. And I have much newer stuff to share with you, including a new living room fireplace - up next!

Holiday Things

Back in the day, I used to make whole posts about just picking out our Christmas tree, or just making cookies. But now, well, it seems that all the usual holiday things can kind of be combined into one post :-/ I'm going to follow my usual format of text, picture, text, picture, so buckle up because here we go. In no particular order, I give you the components of the Nill Family Christmas 2018.

First, decorations. The house:

We did all the wreaths this year and I love how the red ribbon looks!

Next, my little kitchen mantel:

I also did garland on the stair banister but waaah I have no final picture. Just one of me working on it (in my holiday plaid shirt of course!)

I also spent a small fortune on decorations for the TV mantel and fireplace but have no picture of that either! What good does it do me to go around to 16 stores and spend an hour arranging everything if I can't brag about it here? Pbbbbthhhh.

One of the things I love about this time of year is we are forced to do something with what we got last year.

Lots of organizing/trashing/donating certain things - gotta make room! Santa can't bring more stuff if there's no place to put it ;)

What next. Oh - the tree of course.

It looked great on the lot but when we got it home it was a little, um, curvy. No big deal.

On to... matching pajamas:

Our Christmas card...

Which was mailed by my "helpers" who didn't understand what I meant by "quality control". If your envelope arrived with a crooked and/or upside down stamp, well here you go. 

Mystery solved.

Then we made the cookies. Ashton's mouth turned blue and Alex got icing on not one but both sides of his head.

We also went to see all the lights at Fatima Shrine, under the most incredible full moon (looking pathetically small in this picture, but it was, in fact, huge).

What's left here. Oh, Santa! We crashed the Santa Brunch at Brae Burn to meet him.

A note about this. All the BBCC members sign up in advance and then they get a number to see Santa when they arrive at the club that day. Santa shows up and ALL the kids sit around and wait for their name to be called (again, according to their number). Since we were guests, and didn't have a number, Ashton and Alex were going to be last. They did not know this.

You can't tell how many kids there are, but the list before them was long. They waited for easily 45 minutes on the rug, just like this, and watched everyone else go up.

Alex eventually slumped and laid down with his head propped up on his elbows. But Ashton was the model of patience. Front and center, they waited and waited, quietly behind the line.

At last, all the children had gone and just these two sweet boys were left. Everyone had noticed how polite they had been, watching the other kids and listening for their names, including Santa.

"Ashton and Alex!" he boomed. And then, Santa got out of his chair and crawled on all fours, across the rug, to where they were sitting.

I just about died. It was quite possibly the most endearing thing Santa could have done. He told them how good they had been, to wait like that, before inviting them up to sit on his lap.

In the end, because they were last, the boys got extra time with him and were able to ask him all about his elves, his reindeer, etc. Santa didn't skip a beat with his answers and when we were finally driving home, our car was filled with palpable Christmas magic :) Ashton even said, "I know Santa has lots of helpers this time of year, but I think that actually might really have been him. His beard was real, did you see? The hair was like really stuck to his skin! I do, I do think it might really have been him Mommy..." as he looked out the window with sparkle in his eyes. I'm not even exaggerating - it was just that good you guys. I could not have been prouder of them, of their behavior, of their patience, in front of all these families that Jason works for. They deserved the special attention Santa gave them and for me, seeing their true belief in him afterwards...it was everything.

So that was Santa, which brings us to Christmas Eve, Christmas, and the end of December. Next post ;)