Preparing for Christmas

I hate how quickly Christmas came and went this year!!  The first week/weekend after Thanksgiving I had my "favorite things" bunco night followed by Gordon's company Christmas dinner.  That weekend was spent putting Christmas decorations up and going to visit Santa!!!  Over the next week I got our Christmas cards mailed out, wrapped up our Christmas shopping and spent extra time loving on baby boy during his double ear infection sickness.  That following weekend (with 2 days of antibiotics under our belt) William and I made our way up to Dallas to meet my parents.  We went to see ICE! at the Gaylord and had a surprise visit from two of my aunts.  AND the last weekend before Christmas we attended a couples Christmas party, I helped host an ornament exchange party and we got all packed up to head to West Texas.  Whewwww.  It was a crazy, but fun, month!

Christmas Cards are my Favorite!

Lunch Date After Shopping

Bunco Babes

Our annual Ornament Decorating Party had to be canceled due to the yucky flu and I couldn't squeeze gingerbread house making into our tight schedule.  :(   There really needs to be 4 weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas!  Regardless, the holidays were wonderful. 

This was our first year to not get a real Christmas tree.  A part of me was really sad.  But, I will admit that a pre-lit tree is pretty awesome.  I have such fun and happy memories of Christmas as a child. A big part of that is decorating the Christmas tree!  All the ornaments were so fun and most of them had a memory attached to them.  As much as I appreciate a "fancy" tree....our home will always have a fun tree that hold lots of meaning and memories.  William was a great helper this year when it came to tree decorating.  Mommy and daddy even bought some festive Christmas beer to get us in the spirit.  :)

{Mama's helper}  {Christmas shopping.  Love this shirt by Tea from Mimi}  {Lunch date}  {He loves oatmeal}  {Love this face}  {Getting so big}  {Decorating cookies while mama makes his friends treat bags}  {Happy}  {Oh, wow!}  {Ho, Ho, Ho is coming to my house?!?!?}  

Our visit to see Santa went as expected....not so good.  This year, William started to understand that Santa brings you a present if you behave and mind the rules.  We'd ask him what he wanted for Christmas and he'd say, "A BIG truck!"  When we got to Bering's to visit Santa William immediately started saying, "No ho, ho, ho!"  Translation = I don't want to see Santa, he scares me.   When it was almost our turn to talk to Santa William was clinging onto me for dear life.  He wouldn't even look in the direction of Santa.  I told him all he had to do was tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas.  As I put him onto Santa's lap (while he was crying) he started yelling, "I wannnnaaaa BIG truck!" on repeat.  He calmed down long enough to snap a picture (obviously he wasn't smiling for that one!).  When I went to pick him back up he whispered one more time, "I wanna big truck." to Santa.  I got a little teary eyed because he's just so darn sweet....and I felt a little bad for torturing our poor child.  Hopefully he'll laugh when I tell him these stories years from now!

Santa 2014