The Christmas Spirit

I have been majorly in the Christmas spirit this year. I started early too. I liked Thanksgiving being earlier this year so we could get a jump start on decorating and such in November. Well, daddy was out of town this weekend so Baker and I had a lovely Christmas- filled weekend extravaganza.

This year I wanted to do an advent calendar for the first time. I found a pretty one from Etsy that I love. I put an activity in each little bag for us to do each day until Christmas. Dec. 1st was " a special treat" so .....

We started early Saturday morning with our first ever trip to Krispy Kreme (his, not mine)

 Then we headed over to the Rivermarket to get our picture made with Santa. I feel too guilty taking my own pictures behind the other photographer, so this will have to wait. However, afterwards, Baker colored a beautiful picture of Santa FOR Santa and gave it to him.

Then, this nice man let Baker play "Old McDonald" on his banjo. He loved it.

 Fake snow!

 Tuscaloosa also brought in an ice skating rink for the holidays! We went over to watch since I didn't think Baker was ready to ice skate just yet. We watch our friends Stacy and Evy for a little while though.

We went to lunch at Tazikis after our River Market adventure.

Then we went home to decorate the tree whilst listening to Christmas music!

After our long nap, we packed up and went back to the RiverMarket for the $2 movie. We watched "The Grinch who Stole Christmas". When we got home, we drank hot chocolate before bed! (Who am I?)

Dec. 2nd we drew "Listen to the story of Jesus" from our advent calendar. Of course I strategically planned it to happen on Sunday when our church was doing "Breakfast in Bethlehem" for the preschoolers. We had our breakfast at church and then went to see the live animals and nativity scene.

 I did have to talk Baker off a ledge because there wasn't a camel. In his head, there was going to be a camel and he was leaving until he saw one. Whatevs. There wasn't one. In fact, this donkey was alone because the real sheep got out in the field the night before and they couldn't catch them. Again, whatevs.

When we got home from church, daddy was home! We decided Sunday night would be a good time to take Baker to Bobby Millers house. He decorates his yard extravagantly in kid-friendly chaos. He lets you walk through it too. How fun for a 3 year old!

 

Do you think this was enough Christmas fun for one weekend? Well, Apparently I can't get enough because Monday night we went to the Christmas Parade! It was neat, but I could tell Baker was tired and perhaps I have overdone the activities for a minute. 

Dec. 4th we drew "Dance like crazy to Christmas music" so that is a bit more do-able for tonight. 

Oh yes, we also got an Elf on the Shelf this year...more on "Pete" in another post!

This weekend was full of joy. As cheesy as that sounds, it was such a great feeling to experience the holidays with my child and see how excited he gets about everything. I think his past 3 Christmases he has been just too young to really "get it" and this year he does. I feel so blessed.

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