The Christmas Build Up (AKA Christmas part 1)

Christmas this year R-O-C-K-E-D! I'm always a little nervous because, even with kids, I've loved the build up, but the actual day I end up feeling like it's just so commercialized and materialistic and why do we need all this stuff?? (a la early Grinch movie haha). I definitely went overboard this year so I am a bit surprised I don't feel that way, but I also am very proud of the gifts I gave to everyone. There's usually one person/family I feel I could've done better with, but this year I feel I did so good! But let's back up to everything about Christmas time.

We started the season with an early Santa picture. We went the Friday after Thanksgiving (the store was INSANE so I was glad we weren't there to actually buy anything haha), but the line for Santa was really short - even with reservations it can get a bit long - and we were able to do it quickly, with no tears. I had semi-coordinated outfits, but you can't really tell with the lighting in the picture, but it's okay because it's still cute. The funny thing is the "Santa" was the same guy from the first year we did the pictures so it's funny to see a kind the transition from that one to this latest one (definitely not our last one though) .The girls were so excited to see him and talk to him and we even got to pick out candy canes afterwards. I absolutely love this tradition and get so excited to do it each year. The fact that it's free at this store doesn't hurt one little bit haha. The only down side is Larry had to work that day and we were doing our own Thanksgiving dinner, so there was a bit of a mad dash between him being done with work, quickly basting the turkey, me rushing to make the sides that needed to be made early enough, getting everyone dressed and hair done, getting to the store, taking the picture, and then coming home to eat. I told Larry I definitely need to plan it a bit better next year, but at least it's done.

That weekend I tidied up the house (we had LOTS of dishes from our dinner and stuff just lying everywhere) and then got our Christmas put up. I forget how much we have, but at the same time I'm like "is that it??" I have certain spots I like to have decorated so that it feels like the holidays all throughout the house as you walk it, and I didn't feel I had enough for certain spots, but way too much for other spots, and I couldn't swap them for specific reasons. One spot that was really bugging me was the center of our table. I like to have a holiday centerpiece, but I couldn't figure one out with the decoration options (the specific decoration spots is a new thing this year so previously I just put things where I thought was best, but I'm trying to purge unnecessary items this year by only having specific spots...and boy did I get rid of a lot of items from our Christmas décor). We didn't end up putting our outside stuff up, but it's okay, we had our door hanger (a cute snowman) so it was fine enough. We also did a weekend of making paper snow flakes during nap time (might have been a bit early to start that as the girls didn't fully understand the concept of cutting it just right), so we had those hung up in the windows. I let Larry and the kids put up ornaments and fought EVERY urge I had to fix them haha. I did end up switching the "toy" ornaments to the bottom for Pierce to freely grab and put the ones with hooks higher up, but that's just a safety precaution. I also did end up finding a really cute tree and gift decoration to put on our table that I have LOVED having on there so that was a win. We also got some ornaments from Michael's that we could put the kids pictures in and those turned out SO cute. Larry asked if we were going to put new pictures in them every year, and I had to tell him nope, that's a representation of 2022 and I'm keeping those pictures in them. I love them and love the idea of pulling them out every year to remind us about this Christmas.

As far as shopping went I did SO amazing. We had taken a week off in November as just a fun little "lets stay in and do whatever that week" time. I ended up deciding to drive up to Stace's the later half of the week, I also scheduled some needed doctor appointments earlier in the week, but they didn't take up much time. The rest of the time I went out shopping, kid free. I got so much bought and got to go to so many stores. It was awesome. I had a great hiding place for gifts (under the stairs) so the kids didn't suspect a thing. I did almost shop myself out of the spot because I got them so much, but it was fine. It wasn't the EASIEST place to squeeze into to hid things and grab them to wrap, but it worked well enough. I also stayed on top of my budget from my shopping spree (not always an easy thing when I'm literally throwing money all around). I got my shopping and wrapping finished so early I ended up a little board for about a week, then I bought some more haha. Let's just say the stockings were SO full, but they were what I was okay going crazy on since they are usually filled with fun little trinkets and most things were cheaper than $5. But it was nice to just enjoy the couple of weeks before Christmas just being with family and whenever I'd go to stores I'd be so happy I wasn't shopping anymore and stressing out. Or when people would tell me they were still wrapping the week of  Christmas I was very happy to not be in that boat haha. Although I will say I absolutely love wrapping while watching Christmas movies.

I LOVE our new stockings which I was
So happy to finally get!

Speaking of movies, I got to watch all my regular ones and quite a few new Hallmark/Netflix ones. They are always so cheesy, but still so fun to include some of those in the rotation. I started with the cheesy ones before I got to my regularly owned ones, and so when I got to those ones it felt like it was finally Christmas season haha. Note: I have SO many Christmas movies I own I switch off which ones I watch each year (so like Santa Clause 1 & 2 are on my odd years and then Home Alone 1 & 2 are for my even years) I have it like that with similar movies so that I get the same feel good feelings each year and one year isn't heavy with my favorites while the other is filled with ones I just like or anything. 

Making snowflakes with the girls

Can't forget the Lego Advent
Calendar we got this year

One of my absolutely favorite parts of this holiday season was I got to volunteer at Cara's school. Her teacher was doing an ornament thing where you brought items to make an ornament with the kids. I wasn't going to do it at first, but I had some PTO time I had to get rid of and she was reminding us last minute she really needed someone. I didn't love that we had to come up with the idea. I'm not that crafty so it's like tell me what you want me to do and what I need to get and I'll do it, but then I surfed Pinterest and found this really cute Grinch ornament idea and thought the supplies would be cheap and easy. It wasn't as cheap as I had thought/wanted, but it was easy. So I separated everything into little baggies for the kids and put it all in a bag. I went to her school so nervous at the idea of teaching 22 kids how to do this ornament (I wasn't sure if there would be some kids who didn't know how to do part of it, or if the attention spans would be small, would I be boring? so many thoughts). Well, luckily the teacher made it easy by setting us in stations and only having to teach like 6 kids at a time. My first group had Cara and a few of the girls she's told me about and when everyone saw I was Cara's mom they all seemed to flock a little more to her. I loved getting to know the kids more, and every time I dropped her off after that some of the kids would recognize me and smile and wave and then say hi to Cara so I like to think it helped her make friends. As a bonus, I reminded her to hand out my number to her friends so we could schedule play dates with the parents and I ended up getting a couple texts and we scheduled some and I'm so excited to help her socialize more (I think that's a bit harder for the oldest to learn since they are the first to go out into these situations and it's just so unfamiliar). The school also put on a Christmas Concert that I got to take some time from work to go to and seeing her sing and perform was so much fun. It just really made this year so awesome!

Cara's Christmas Concert

As for our neighbors, we bought the gifts for them early, but I wanted to wait until closer to Christmas to give them out. We waited almost a tad too late, but we went out the night of the 14th to hand them out. Saying hi to them was so nice, we know most of them, but it was still nice to face them and just let them know who we are. One of our neighbors, who is a couple doors down, had sent me a picture of Cara at her concert (she was MUCH closer to the front and got a good shot) so I made sure she got one because she's just so sweet. Half of the neighbors weren't home, but we just left the goodies at their door. The neighborhood party was the 16th so we got to know even more at that. They said they were having an ugly sweater contest, but Larry and I were almost the only ones to dress up. A few wore ugly shirts, but they weren't as obvious as ours were. One kid came with a shirt covered in gift bows, so that was silly. He ended up winning 1st place in the contest, we won 2nd, and someone wearing a Die Hard shirt won 3rd, but all prizes were just a couple boxes of candy so it was all just in good fun. It was nice to win and I think it put us on the radar for some of the neighbors to know who we are. Cara also got a Jack Skellington necklace from one of the men, he was nice enough to give it to her when I pointed out who was on it to them (they had JUST watched the movie earlier that day) so that was a nice memory for them. That and the Grinch (instead of Santa) stopping by for pictures and a candy cane. Overall, it was SO nice to see so many neighbors, get to know them, have them get to know us, and just overall feel like we're more involved in our community.

We also got to see A LOT of family during the month. As hard as it can be for me to wrangle all the family up and go out, especially when I'd like to stay in and stick with my usual routine, I reminded myself the point of the season is to be with loved ones, think of others, and to be surrounded by those types of feelings/ideas. We got some bad news about my niece Lilly, she's pretty sick, so I took the girls out to go get some fun cozy items for her and then took them to drop them off to her. We got to see Nana and Papa Wilson and say hi for a bit and it ended up being a nice, but very quick, visit (not that I minded, I didn't intend it to be as long as it was to begin with, honestly). We had Larry's family part on the 18th. Even though it ended up being during the day when all the naps would usually happen, we were able to make it work and Pierce got a nice nap once we got home, and we got to see more if his mom's side than we have in a while so it was really nice to visit with them. We saw more Wilson's when they came out for their family Christmas. They were going to rent an AirBnB in St. George, but with Lilly's sickness they ended up staying in one by the airport so we got to visit with them on the 23rd and it was one of the more fun visits we've had. I know it's a tough time for them, with a sad anniversary, but we had a fun snowball fight, we talked a lot, we got to see almost ALL the kids and spouses and kids. I got to talk to Donovan about his engagement and sports, the shy kids came out of their shells quite a bit (at least mine did). It was just so nice. We had Christmas eve with my mom and them and although it was  VERY late start to breakfast, it was still really fun to visit with them. Poor Pierce really had to learn that the holidays mean he doesn't nap like usual and some bottles/food were a little later than normal or in weird places, but he actually held up really well. 

So that was our build up to Christmas, my next post will be Christmas Eve night and Christmas day because that deserves a post all it's own.