Christmas at Home...

I know it is trite to even say it, but I love Christmastime. It is just so magical, isn't it? I'm a little late in documenting (but thanks to some handy backdating at least it will show up more in order when I make our blog book) but here are some of the things we did to enjoy our little slice of Christmas at home, before we hopped a plane to Phoenix/Vegas/Utah/Vegas/Phoenix for a month. :)

I've been drooling over this gorgeous ornament garland I saw on Pinterest since sometime last year, so as soon as ornaments started showing up at Megathrift I  bought up a bunch of them (cheaply!) and spent a few afternoons working on it while watching Psych with Steve on Netflix.

I should be embarrassed that I had it finished and up before Thanksgiving... But I'm not. We were leaving SO early in the season to travel that I just wanted to enjoy the home-Christmas feeling for as long as possible.

Also before Thanksgiving(!) we took the kids to the local Festival of Trees, a warehouse full of decorated Christmas trees, fancy gingerbread houses, and arts/crafts for the kids. Gracie made a foam Christmas tree and some reindeer food, and was thrilled to meet Santa and Mrs. Claus. She had a very long, very animated conversation with Santa that I wish I had overheard.

Per tradition, we got the tree and real decorations out the day after Thanksgiving--and continued the Walton tradition of a donut breakfast to go with it. Snowman Krispy Kremes? Yes please. 

Then Charlie waited patiently as Steve brought up box after box of Christmas cheer...

And we set up the tree, made a quick detour to Home Depot for more lights, and started adding the decorations. (Tiger, one of Charlie's favorite bedtime snuggle buddies, was also in attendance.)

He mostly wanted to pretend to eat this pear ornament. It couldn't seem to stay on the tree.

We watched tons of Christmas movies, like all the old claymation/animated classics (you know, Rudolph, Frosty, & their crew), and we made french toast with syrup for a Sunday evening viewing of Elf, which may be tied with Home Alone 2 as my favorite kid's Christmas movie.

We also read lots of Christmas stories! I searched and searched for my favorite version of the Luke Christmas story and finally came across a used library copy through Better World Books. We also read some of our traditional favorites like the Santa Mouse books, and added some new ones, like Olive, the Other Reindeer.

The Friday before we headed out, we had our little family Christmas. We had a yummy dinner, and opened presents together, and enjoyed the Christmas tree. The next two days were for playing with new toys and packing up, and then we were off on another airplane adventure.