Holiday Fun!

December is without a doubt one of the craziest, but best months of the year at our house.  It is a month packed full of tinsel and traditions, parties and pleasantries.  From year to year, many of our December posts resemble posts of years past--just with slightly older children and the occasional change of venues.  Like our annual Halloween party, it may seem to the occasional reader like a bit of a broken record; however, it is just the yearly nature of these traditions that make them so special to me and my family. These are traditions that I hope my children and my children's children will have memories of for years to come.  So without further adieu, a few pictures from our yearly holiday fun.

Here we are bustin' out the holiday decorations bins.  This breaking in the season event usually takes place on the day after Thanksgiving right after we get home from our early morning Black Friday shopping.  We load our favorite Andy Williams Christmas CD into the Bose and blast "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" through the whole house.  Then we get all of the Christmas decorations put up.  All except the tree of course.  We usually wait until the first weekend in December to cut down our tree so it's sure to still be fresh on Christmas morning.





Here we are stopping off for a visit to Santa.  The Mayo Fellows Association hosts a family Christmas party on the morning of the first Saturday in December.  Santa visits the party,



as well as a few of his reindeer.  They also have party games, treats, a bounce house for the kids, and horse-drawn wagon rides outside.

Here we are on the annual Christmas tree-cutting trip.  Someday we will get a really HUGE tree, but for now, we usually try to pick something fairly conservative.  That's especially true since mom secretly threw away all of the fake Christmas wreaths last year and left us with only one option this year--buying real wreaths for all of the windows.  The tree cutting farm makes the most beautiful wreaths with the cut off tree bows and it was simply a must to have some this year.

We didn't capture any photos of the kids stringing popcorn or actually decorating the tree this year, but it got done nonetheless, as did another fun Christmas tradition--the twelve days of Christmas crafts.  Aunt Jenny started this tradition at our house last year by sending a little twelve days of Christmas gift pack.  We saved the box she sent and decided that while the kids are young this is a great way to bring in a little extra holiday fun.  Here are the kids with the first few days of crafts.