With Allie being 2.5 years, she really began to understand Christmas this year…..the Elf on the Shelf (Francis is his name), Santa, Rudolph, the North Pole, etc. We had a great month leading up to the big celebrations with family. And for Will, well, he mostly just enjoyed the paper and bows!
It all began at our “Pennsylvania house”, as Allie calls it. We decorated both our “Atlanta house” and “Pennsylvania house” so that we could enjoy the season in both locations.
We celebrated at our Pennsylvania house a few days early, as we were scheduled to fly to Atlanta on 12/22. The Sunday morning before Christmas we enjoyed a pancake breakfast, and then got busy opening presents! Granny sent up a HUGE present for Allie and Will to share, and boy did they enjoy their new motorized jeep!
David and I also gave Allie and Will a few presents from us, and exchanged some great presents of our own. Allie seemed to really enjoy her new baby doll, complete with playpen, high chair and stroller, while Will got his first bike! We’ve even been out for our first bike ride on it already!
It was soon time to head south to Atlanta to celebrate with our families. We were lucky enough this year to have all of David’s brothers and some of his other relatives together not only to celebrate Christmas, but also to celebrate Grandma and PaPa’s 60th wedding anniversary!
Uncle Steve even managed to put on a Santa hat and play Santa for Allie and Will….fortunately for us, we were able to catch this quick photo of Will on “Santa’s” lap. Turns out that this is the only photos I have of either child with Santa this year, as my valiant effort a few weeks earlier to get them all dressed up in their cute Christmas clothes that I purchased just for photos with Santa and lugging them to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap was a complete failure! Will screamed from across the room when he saw the big bearded man in the red suit and Allie wouldn’t get closer than three feet from him! Oh well, so much for valiant efforts….guess we’ll just try again next year.
After a Christmas Eve lunch to celebrate the big wedding anniversary, we came back to the house to open presents with Granny, Honey, and Chris, and prepare for Santa’s visit. Allie loved all her presents from Granny, Honey, and Chris, but was especially fond of her pillow pet and hopscotch mat. Will, once again, was just happy to play with the paper and bows, but he did make an attempt at playing hopscotch with his big sister, and he finally got the hang of opening the presents.
We got the babies all decked out in their Christmas PJs and got busy baking cookies for Santa. We put out Santa’s cookies and milk and a banana and pear for the reindeer, and off to bed they went.
Christmas morning after a quick breakfast for Baby Will, we woke Allie up to see what all Santa had delivered.
And of course, the babies were thrilled with all that Santa brought. Allie was really happy about her vacuum cleaner, and she still tells everyone that it’s her favorite toy that Santa brought to her…..seems that it’s Will’s favorite too as he plays with it everyday! And of course she loved her new Minnie Mouse panties that Santa left in her stocking!
After spending all of Christmas Day playing with new toys, we packed up and headed to Auburn for yet another found of presents! Allie and Will had so much fun playing with all of their cousins and visiting with Ommie, Auntie, and the whole crew. And, I finally got to put them in those cute outfits that I bought for them to wear in their Santa pictures! After a long day of hard play, we retired for the night and then headed back to Atlanta the next day. We only had a couple more days at “Atlanta house” before packing up and boarding the plane back to Pennsylvania.
It was truly a fantastic Christmas and it’s so much fun to see Allie’s eyes glow with the beautiful innocence that’s present only in children during this season…..I can’t wait until next year when Will’s eyes light up as well!
Nikki
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