Merry Christmas!

Six days until Christmas...

5 until Christmas Eve. Owen is beyond excited! But he is very patient too. Probably because he's been waiting so long that he's just forgotten about asking about it. He began asking questions after Thanksgiving when the neighbors started putting holiday lights in their yards. He wanted to know why, "we don't have any Christmas". We don't put lights in the yard so he thought we weren't having Christmas.

Morgan likes to take the decorating slowly so we didn't put the tree up until last weekend. I had started with other decorations the previous couple of weeks though. It would be easier for me to do it myself but we keep all the decorations in the attic and that is not a place that is easily accessible for me!

Here is our tree after getting ornaments on Monday night.

And one of my favorite glass ornaments. We are mostly finished with our gift shopping. Just a thing or two left. Morgan made two loaves of Stollen today and they are baking in the oven right now. I have some baking to do also but probably won't start on that until Morgan gets the kitchen back in order from the Stollen!

I was wrapping gifts today and Owen was working in my craft room with me. He loves to "work" in there. Which mostly means cutting up paper or using my punches. Today I got out my old fiskars trimmer for him to use. He was having a grand time cutting paper. Then he made a present for my friend Maggie. More cutting of paper and lots of tape.

Morgan is on vacation until after Christmas. Should be interesting having him around the house during the day. We haven't been home together like this since before we bought the house. When he takes vacation we usually go somewhere. But he has a lot of time to use up or he would lose it. Should be interesting!

Hello December...

I can't believe it's already December. This year has flown by. I'm always amazed at how the passage of time seems so much faster as an adult than it did as a child.

Owen is already excited about Christmas. He sees all the lights in people's yards at night and asks why we aren't having Christmas. We've been busy trying to explain how the lights are just one way that people get ready for Christmas and prepare to celebrate Jesus' birthday. Part of getting ready for Christmas is celebrating Advent. Morgan is big on Advent. He doesn't like to rush into Christmas. And to be honest, neither do I. I guess it's just another way to make things last longer or enjoy it more. We have an Advent activity calendar that I made last year that has tags with activities on it for us to do everyday. Not anything huge and spectacular. Sometimes just little things. We also have an Advent calendar from Trader Joe's that Owen can open a little door on and there is a piece of candy inside. Fortunately the candy pieces are quite small so I won't have to feel bad if he eats it in the morning sometimes!

We also set up a Nativity set each year. This year while I was looking for the Lego Advent Calendar at Target (which they were out of) I found this great Playmobil Nativity Set.

We got it out today and put it together. Owen LOVES it! We set it up in his room on his dresser where he can see it and play with it. It came with a small book with the Christmas Story in it. Owen keeps calling the wise men soldiers and Morgan likes to call them wise guys.

I'm going to attempt to do a little Daily December journal this time around. I've attempted the last two years and even made a couple little journals but never got them finished. This year I haven't put anything together yet so maybe not planning it will help me accomplish something!