It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

It seems every year the Christmas season comes and goes so quickly. This year we made a conscious effort to get started right away. For the first time, we put our tree up the day after Thanksgiving and decorated the house. Christmas music is all we have listened to all month, with "Mary Did You Know" being Little Miss Sunshine's favorite. Pupetta is often heard "singing" something along the lines of "silent nite, holy..." .That's all she knows. Our daily morning thoughts prior to family prayer have all focused on Jesus's birth and His life. I love that Jesus is the focus and even little Pupetta points out Jesus in nativities, stories and in paintings. The ward Christmas party was held the first weekend in December, and Little Miss Sunshine played Mary. She thoroughly enjoyed it and continued to dress up as Mary at home for days after. It seemed to help her think more of the birth of the Savior.

Our kitchen wall is a little Santaish though. Guitar Daddy and I have had many discussions this season on the place of Santa in Christmas and how much emphasis should be placed on him. We're still ironing out our philosophy on that. I love hanging some photo cards with clothespins on the rick rack hanging above the kitchen shelf.

We made our first gingerbread house out of graham crackers this year.
Little Miss Sunshine did a craft project of her own design nearly everyday. I can't tell you how many rolls of tape and glue sticks we have gone through this season alone! Here she is counting mini gingerbread men erasers onto "cookie sheets" (cardstock covered with aluminum foil and laminated") . One of the benefits of being a teacher by profession is on occassion I actually remember to take out some of the activities.
The living room is where all the nativities are. Since we have such young girls, they are all kept up high. Our mantel is a bit cluttered for my liking, but at least there are reminders of Jesus's birth. A couple of the nativities on the mantel hold an extra special place as they belonged to my late mother -in -law who was quite an example of Christ herself. Our large nativity's home is on top of our entertainment armoire. I gave that nativity to Guitar Daddy as a gift our first Christmas. Our tradition is to retell the Christmas story as we set out the figures as part of our first family home evening of the Christmas season.
I've tried to avoid too much baking this season. I love to share gifts with others, but always manage to eat about half of them before giving away treats. Here's a picture of Little Miss Sunshine and her daddy coming home from delivering a cellophane wrapped and ribbon tied pineapple to our widower neighbor. I saw them walking back and it was so sweet to see them together, I had to capture that moment.