Glorious Christmastime

Despite all of the pre-Christmas crafting, I tried to keep the perspective that my kids will probably have more memories of the Christmas SEASON than of the actual day & gifts.  I tried to keep things fun and not stressy.  Here are some pre-Christmas memories from this year.

Santa hats.  Bought at Michaels as a bribe...that is THE WORST store to take my kids to.  I'm not sure what makes it so much worse than other stores.  Anyhow, the Santa hats worked pretty well for that trip.

After we decorated the Christmas tree (or put "decorations on the decoration tree" as Monkey puts it) the kids wanted me to take their picture...while wrapped in blankets.  Don't ask me, they do their own styling.

By the way, when the tree was first decorated 75% of the ornaments were in a line at Monkey's eye level : )  Thankfully the tree kept getting rearranged over the next week or two, and the ornaments were more evenly dispersed by the big day!

Christmas morning before the chaos.  I got the idea to hang the Christmas cards on a strand of lights from Pinterest, and LOVED it.  L.O.V.E.  Next year I want to mod podge some christmas deco papers onto clothespins to hang them, but for this year I just taped them up and called it good enough.
(The good news about this picture is that I'm reasonably happy with how my home looks.  except for the ceiling.  Will it ever get done??!!!)

This picture is pretty terrible, I know, but I haven't installed photoshop on my new computer yet.  But there are three fun things here: 1. My new table runner (I also bought a second one to give as an exchange game gift) that I got for 90% off of the Bed Bath & Beyond retail price : )  And I needed a table runner for that table, and I LOVE this runner.  2. What looks like a haphazard collection of toys and such is actually very careful staging done by Chick.  Arranged just so, for Santa who was coming that night.  And 3. is even more obscure: the three duplo blocks in the center of the table?  It's "Singing in the Rain."  boy, girl, boy, like on the cover of Singing in the Rain.  Kids are so random.  Whenever we have two of one thing and one of another, it gets arranged "boy, girl, boy" and it becomes "Singing in the Rain."  I'm sure Santa picked up on the nuance, though.  He's very in gamba*.

*Sorry for the probably obscure use of Italian, but it's ridiculous-- I've been home from my mission for over 10 years, and still some words or phrases in Italian work better than those in English.  "In gamba" means "on the ball."  Somehow Santa is more "in gamba" than he is "on the ball."