Holiday traditions, new and old

Well, I had this great holiday traditions post all ready, and then went and forgot to post it! Ha! So now it's a "here's what we did for our holiday season" post. Enjoy!

Little Man, in awe of the holiday tree.

First off, we are getting a whole new take on having a little guy around. Since there are so many cool things to see and do, we packed in a lot, which made the holiday super sweet. It wasn't about presents...just doing new things together. Loved it!

We kicked off the holiday season by going to the lighting of the Christmas tree at the city center (which happens to be at the mall) with our besties. Kiddos had a blast running around the giant tree (after the crowds died down) and chugged hot chocolate with gusto. We did the same last year and will do it again next year too. Gets us into the holiday spirit!

We also went to our city's holiday parade (held the weekend before Thanksgiving). He loved it! This kid is seriously into parades. He sat perfectly still (freaking miracle!) for nearly 2 hours in the cold. His favorites are the tubas, drums, flag twirlers and candy throwers. It's a must for next year! It's pretty funny because the weekend before we went to the Veteran's Day parade, and the weekend after the Holiday parade we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV. Little Man now believes that parades happen every weekend. If only...

Rudolph!

 
Because we were in the spirit already, our tree went up the earliest we've ever had it up (some years it never even came out). We have a vintage aluminum tree which I LOVE. Little Man was super great and hardly messed with it. We gave him his own little tree, with tiny lights and ornaments so he could decorate it and play with it as much as he wanted. That seemed to keep him from going after the big tree.

The highlight of our Christmas season was that GG (The Man's mom) came to spend it with us! Super fun! Unfortunately, GG, Little Man and The Man all ended up with colds/flu and other crud. We kept things low-key and stayed home a lot, but we still had a blast sharing our holiday together.

Of course, we visited Santa. We did this last year with the expected results. This year, Little Man was very brave and didn't cry at all! He was holding on pretty tight though. Absolutely we'll do this again. Can't wait to see how he reacts when he's 3!

We had boatloads of Christmas light viewing this season. Little Man really loves it (lighted candy canes are his fave and he screams with delight when he spots them) and it was fun for us all. We found several cool light displays this year. Notably, the infamous Candy Cane Lane, which is comprised of several blocks of houses who decorate and collect funds for kids with cancer. We also made a repeat visit to Country Christmas. Last year we were there with my parents, and this year we got to share it with GG! It's about a bajillion (more or less) light displays set up on a golf course. You drive through them all and listen to Christmas music on their radio channel. The grand finale is this Christmas light tunnel that resembles some psychedelic acid trip (I'm guessing about what a drug trip is like but if the movies portray it correctly, it's a lot like driving in the Christmas light tunnel). Totally awesome.

And...one last Christmas light find. There are two houses in our area that have put together some spectacular light shows that are choreographed to music. Here's a video of one of the songs:

Gus, putting up with his silly Santa hat.

We had our annual pajama party too, this time with GG! We all got new Christmas jammies which we opened on Christmas eve. This year we had matching ones for GG and me, and Little Man and The Man had matching too. When we got up in the AM, we all wore our jammies and opened gifts, and then spent the entire day loafing around. This was partly due to the fact that The Man, Little Man and GG all managed to get some sort of major cold. But it was really fun and relaxing!

Of course, we also did plenty of paper snowflake making, cookie baking, and LOTS of eating.

Not needing to cram in anything else for next year, but if we wanted to do a few more fun things, here's my short list of what to try:

Thinking of printing out this Christmas countdown, where you add a cotton ball to Santa's face each day. When his beard is full, it's Christmas! Love it! (Plus, it's FREE!)

OK, I know I'm probably late to the party, but just learned about the Elf on the Shelf. While I sorta love the idea of having Little Man running out every morning to see where that crazy Elf is hanging out, it also creeps me out having him think that someone is watching him all the time. I always thought Santa was a bit of a pervert for supposedly watching what you do all the time.... maybe it's just me....Anyhoo, the Elf does have an adoption angle which is sort of a nice gateway for adoption discussions. GG was very sweet and bought us one for next year! Here's a link to a cute calendar of activities that we might try.