Holiday Traditions & Events

I love traditions so of course there's no better time of year for that than Christmas.  Some people will start getting into the holiday spirit right after Thanksgiving (although it seemed like this year I saw a ton of people with their Christmas trees up before Thanksgiving this year which just seems crazy to me) but besides decorating our mantle (basically because I'm sick of my fall decor which is up for 2 months by the time Thanksgiving rolls around), I like to wait until December to do anything else.  Lucy is at the perfect age to get really excited about all these traditions & events and it's so fun to see her come downstairs every morning to hang up an ornament on the tree, open a door on her advent calendar, and look for Jack, the elf.

Started last Friday morning off with chocolate advent calendars

Our Christmas tree advent calendar that my Grandma made, and since it was one of my FAVORITE things about Christmas as a kid, my parents passed it down to me

Every day, you pick out the ornament and hang it on the tree

We also started our Elf on the Shelf a couple years ago but since Lucy is old enough to finally get it, I wanted to do something special for his arrival on December 2 (I would've done it on December 1 but I was picking up the cookies that morning!)

Jack was sitting on the mantle with a letter & cookies for the girls

Found the letter on Pinterest...

and the lady I always use for cookies (Cookie Crumbs) was making these

Lucy saw him right away when she came downstairs

I also bought this Christmas countdown calendar from the Target dollar spot this year and Lucy has enjoyed crossing off each day

On Saturday, we went to Honda for the annual breakfast with Santa--our 5th year! (obviously, Cece wasn't as excited as Lucy)

And on Saturday afternoon, we went to Cackler Farms for the 3rd year to cut down our own tree

We spent part of Sunday afternoon decorating the tree..

and Todd finished it by putting the star on top

As you can see, we're in full on Christmas mode and there's a few more events I'd like to add in too this year like going to see the Fantasy of the Lights at Alum Creek and checking out the train exhibit at the downtown library.  We also will make & ice sugar cookies in a couple weeks with my dad, which is something I've done since I was a little girl, and we also have tickets to take Lucy to see Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer at the Palace Theatre.  Of course, we have fun events too without the kids like our work holiday parties (although Todd's work party is in January this year), my annual blogger dinner (girls I met through blogging like 6 years ago that have become my real life friends), my book club brunch/favorite things party, and the annual Sexy 7 Gift Exchange (with my high school friends...and I believe this year is #19!!).  I love this time of the year and it definitely keeps us busy!

Also--I'm going to do separate posts this week with more photos of Breakfast with Santa and cutting down & decorating our Christmas tree.