Our christmas

Santa has always been very flexible with our family. He has never required that we be at home on Christmas Eve for his annual delivery.  We simply notify him ahead of time about the date of "our" family Christmas and he comes the evening before. I think that he must get this request a lot with parents who have to work on Christmas (as Sandi has had to on alternating years) and he does what he can to help out. We've always thought he might even prefer to lighten his load on the evening of the 24th and that we might actually be doing him a favor.

The girls were very thoughtful with their letters this year.


Dear Santa: I want for Christmas a pink and purple crystal please. Love, Maya xoxo

  

Dear Santa, Can you please get me for Christmas new slippers for McKenna, a doll scooter and McKenna's school outfit.  Love, Ella  P.S. It does not mater if you get me the "hole" set for McKenna.  (She was missing one of the two slippers).  I hope I am good. Thank you.

Christmas morning had our girls excited to get downstairs with our granddaughters.  Yes, that is what Ella calls their American Girls: our granddaughters.   We had also had bunch of snow overnight and we actually woke to a white Christmas!

A doll scooter for Ella:

And Santa saw fit to bring Maya a mode of doll transportation even though she didn't ask for it.  Because after all she didn't know she was getting the doll and Santa likes to keep things even.

Maya was screaming happy that Ella got some slippers.

 

And Ella was truly shocked by the beauty of one of Maya's crystals.

It was a stunner.

This year was full of great expressions!

 

Tia always comes by on our Christmas morning and this was no exception.  (Santa brought the girls candy rings.)




princess castle from Aunt Suz and Uncle Buck



marbles and a bag to keep them in for Maya (so hopefully she won't lose her marbles)

The girls each gave each other gifts this year and there was a lot of hugging going on as a result.

 

Sandi made doll beds for each of the girls (my contribution was the decorating) to hang on the sides of their beds.  Yes, these were worked on until late into the night on our Christmas Eve because this is the only way we know to do things.  They were, and still are, a big hit.  Now our granddaughters have a place to sleep at night.

 

Christmas "dinner" consists of lots of fun food to pick on as well as Ella's favorite "Christmas cheese" which I buy at the wine store at a whopping $12.00 a pound.  This child loves her extra sharp Cheddar.

Probably one of the most fun gifts we got for our family was a set of speed stacking cups, complete with a mat, timer and carry case.  This sport is new this year to Ella's school P.E. program and it's tons of fun.  Check it out online! The competitive stackers are super fast!

Naturally, Sandi will put us all to shame.

 

Our Christmas this year was full of fun and joy and appreciation and a fair amount of whining from Maya.  Ella showed a great deal of maturity by expressing lots of gratitude and pausing to consider each gift and Maya flip-flopped between hilarious and handful.  We played a lot, watched a Christmas movie, and romped in the snow on this very special day.  We ended it making homemade pretzels (while doing a lot of limit setting and time outs for Maya) and trying hard not to be too sad that it wouldn't happen for another whole year.  It is hard to shut the door on this magical day knowing that the next time it comes, the girls will be a year older and not at all the same as they were (for good and for bad) in this moment in time. 

 

Here's to hoping the letters to Santa are being scribbled out on our kitchen table again next year.