Holiday Staples

The Christmas lead-up was pretty much as you would expect. Get a tree, partake in crafts, concerts, and cookies, fear Pete, and make no less than 9 different lists for Santa.

In the interest of fast-tracking this catch-up process that I'm in, here is our December, in a few pictures.

Holiday Home Depot Kids Workshop - a tree picture frame/ornament thing. The tree was made of wood. Get it? So meta.

Then we went to get our ACTUAL tree. In the past we've had two trees but since the piano came into our lives this year, there was no room for the second one in the front foyer. Poor second tree! We missed it.

We saw two live performances in December - a kids production of Charlie Brown (Alex was sooo psyched ;) )

and Disney on Ice (for which both boys sat, virtually unblinking, for the entire thing. It was a Christmas miracle I tell you).

We also had our friends over for pizza and to decorate cookies (you can guess how long that lasted - also I am still finding sprinkles in random places, those round nonpareils will never happen again!!)

and Jason built an ice rink in the backyard. Yes he did.

This monstrosity did not come into our lives without a few, er, hiccups. But nonetheless the boys have started to learn to skate which is a nice wholesome wintry activity.

Pete (our elf) is always a mainstay. He flies down December 1 and spends a few weeks whipping the boys into shape. As the month goes on, the law of diminishing returns does take some effect, but overall Pete is quite beloved. The boys JUMP out of bed in the morning to be the first to find him. You can see it in Alex's face as they said goodbye to him on Christmas Eve:

Final prep for Santa:

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house...

See you on the 25th!