This and That: Christmas Style

There are always so many fun things to do and places to go during the Advent season. I did my best to find time....without doing so much that I was overly stressed out...to make memories with the boys this year. 

As usual, we observed Advent. We had all kinds of countdowns to Christmas...our usual Christmas paper chain and our new Nativity calendar from Aunt Kristi. The boys loved lighting the candles (that we made!...we rolled our own beeswax candles from here) each night as we prayed together. I held out decorating our tree until the 3rd Sunday of Advent, but I did put our tree up sooner. Overall, I tried very hard to keep Santa and red and green on the down low, knowing full well that society would take care of keeping the boys excited about all of that. 

My season was blessed by an Advent concert from Audrey Assad and Matt Maher.  Thanks to the hubby holding down the fort at home, I got to steal away for some much needed centering during this crazy time of year. It was truly heaven sent. 

Our Fisher Price Nativity set always sees a lot of play time.



This was Jude's idea....

What? Doesn't everyone cook up some wise men for lunch? A little shepherd's pie? Or maybe it was myrrh fry. (Thanks for the funny word play, Julie!)

This year, we decided that Eli was ready to start understanding the idea of GIVING a little more, specifically giving back. We signed him up as a volunteer to sort the food our church collects for Christmas food boxes. He loved being a part of it, but we are not sure he really got it. It was definitely a start though. Such a warming feeling to see my boy serving amidst a sea of collected goods. 

And, of course we baked some goodies. There were gingerbread men with Jude (yes, we are on the floor..it is easier to work there with littles sometimes....and he was soooo excited because The Gingerbread Man was a favorite story last month.)

....homemade marshmallows to be given out with fancy hot chocolate as gifts to special teachers and friends. (the boys just had to make Santa beards...talk about sticky!)

....and of course, sugar cookies.

There were new Christmas jammies from Aunt Ann (if you never watched this video, you have to...we couldn't stop singing it...and the boys LOVED that theirs were similar to the ones in the video.)

We had dance parties regularly and belted out Disney tunes til we could sing no more. So good for the stretched-too-thin soul. Sometimes you just gotta let loose, ya know? 

Yes, we had to go see Santa. We found a fabulous spot this year with no line. We will be back. It was perfect....

....except for the fact that Jonah still has some pretty serious stranger danger. He was not having it. Snapped a couple quick pics and then rescued him. ***Fun side note: All 3 boys have worn that onesie to sit on Santa's lap and Jude's sweater was worn by Eli at that age.*** 

The other boys had no problem chatting it up with the Big Guy. Jude still hasn't mastered "asking for presents." It won't be long before he is rattling off 3 or 4 things like his brother. 

And I think that brings us up to Matt's birthday and Christmas Eve. I am almost caught up with December. Whew. Then it is on to the adventures 2014 brings.