Christmas Eve

Our first Christmas eve in Nashville was surprisingly packed!  I guess I was worried that we would run out of things to do, so I went the other way and perhaps planned a little too much!  The kids loved it all, but let me just say, the day involved a lot of cooking and cleaning on my part!  First, we made pretzel treats for our neighbors.

There are eleven houses on our street, and we have not met anyone who lives in them!  That had to end.  I do not like not knowing my neighbors!  So…armed with our basket of goodies…

…we started off!

Anna’s being ornery, but I love Luke’s smile!

Here’s a good one.  Let’s Instagram it!

I was a little hesitant to go banging away on so many unknown doors, but it actually went quite well.  Two of our neighbors, especially, are really nice, and both of them are believers, so that’s cool.  It was great to finally meet them!

We got home just in time for me to clean up the kitchen before our friends, Viviana and Hadessa, arrived to make cookies for Santa with us!

Team effort on the brown sugar!

Anna thought the mixer was the funniest thing ever, especially when she turned it on too fast and it got flour all over her and Hadessa.  Dessa, on the other hand, was startled by the event and flinched any other time we turned the mixer on.  In the meantime, I had to keep a close eye on Anna to make sure she didn’t put her hand into the mixing bowl while it was going!  I share that anecdote to highlight Anna’s personality.  She has a high sensory threshold (not bothered at all by being covered in flour) and is not intimidated by much (even when she should be!:)).  Personally, I relate more to Dessa!

While the cookies baked and the kids played hide and seek, I rolled out meatballs for dinner and enjoyed a wonderful conversation with Viv.  I baked the meatballs, but then had to refrigerate them because it was time to go to church for our Christmas eve service.  Afterward, we came back for a delicious dinner (unfortunately, Viv and her kids couldn’t join us), and then we set out cookies for Santa:

Oops!  Almost spilt them!

Luke wrote that note earlier today (I’m telling you, he is all about Santa this year), and then had me pick out our cookie plate so that he could tape the note to it.  That kid cracks me up!

Afterward, we read our usual Christmas Eve stories:  The Night Before Christmas and the story of Jesus’ birth:

And…one more Instagram:

We are slightly addicted!

After stories, we said our prayers, and Anna prayed that Santa would have a safe trip to Tennessee. 

And now…Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Our First Movie Night in Nashville—Instagram style

On December 23, we had our first movie night in our new house.

On December 23, I also discovered the Instagram app for Greg’s phone.

What a wonderful coincidence!  Let’s join the two together, shall we?

After a leisurely morning in which we built not one, but two houses for Santa to visit, using two different sets of blocks, we used the afternoon to wrap and deliver our Sneaky Santa gifts.

Sneaky Santa is something we decided to do this year in order to emulate the legend of St. Nicholas.  I’ve blogged here and here about my thoughts on Christmas and Santa, and have said how we don’t pretend that Santa is real.  And by “we,” I mean Greg and me.  Thus, we have told our kids the truth (Luke asked point blank, which forced our hand), and we have instead focused on the legend of St. Nicholas and the spirit of giving, in conjunction with the birth of Jesus (of course).  However, this year, Luke really want to go with the whole Santa thing.  I know that we’ve talked about him not being real even this month, but he is choosing to ignore that and to play Santa up to the hilt.  Or in other words, he is choosing to believe.  And I totally respect that.  We’ve done our part for the truth, and I think we’ve made reality very clear, but the kid wants to go with it, and so that’s what we are going to do, I guess:).  Anyhow, that was all a tangent.  Back to the main event.

Greg and the kids were the ones to take the Sneaky Santa presents, while I did some cleaning.  By the time they got back, our pizza had arrived for dinner.  Then, we set up the family room for a movie night, and popped some popcorn.  Greg got some that we hoped to pop over the fire:

Alas, it the fire wasn’t hot enough to pop popcorn?

Oh well, it was hot enough to warm our hands:

This setting on Instagram is called “Toaster.”  I thought that was appropriate:).

We ended up popping the popcorn over the stove, with great success:

The kids got a kick out of it.

Then, it was movie time!

This setting is called, “Nashville.”  I thought that was fitting!

We watched the movie, Elf, which the kids LOVED (although, just a heads up to other parents, it has three cuss words and one inappropriate phrase.  I hope the kids didn’t notice!).  They were very entertained by the silly humor, for sure!

We all absolutely love movie nights, and our first one in Nashville was no exception!

Christmas Representations, by Luke

Luke and Anna have been very artistically expressive lately, and Luke, especially, has been really into making Christmas art this year.  His creative juices have been flowing!

One day, he came home from school and immediately went to work on a cut-and-paste Santa:

Not content to stop there, he decided that Santa needed a reindeer and sleigh:

Another day, he marched in from school, determined to make his own Santa suit:

Yesterday, he came up with a Lego Santa, sleigh, and reindeer:

And currently on our tree are a couple more of his creations:

He did all of these completely on his own, without any prompting or help from us!  I think someone is a little bit excited about Christmas this year!

Christmas Shenanigans

As always, our Christmas has been full of joy and festivities.  To be honest, each year it gets easier to handle all the hoopla.  I think it’s because my kids are getting older and have more flexible schedules; they are not so dependent on naps and things like that.  Also, we’ve had several years now to determine our Christmas perspectives and traditions, and while I’m sure we will continue to tweak things, we are beginning to settle into our yuletide routines. 

That said, being in Nashville added some new elements to our Christmas mix.  We had our standard gingerbread house party on Dec. 3.  Then the next Saturday evening, the teens from our church came over as part of a progressive dinner.  I was in charge of desserts:  my favorite!  And since I come from the Bev Sparrow school of over-preparation, I made sure we were loaded with desserts (I wonder why I always gain weight during the holidays??).

My mom came into town shortly before the party, and the next morning, she and I drove up with the kids to Kentucky for the Pogue Christmas party.  I was very excited to finally live close enough to attend, and it was great to see so many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins, along with my sweet Mammaw!

Anna and Katie Belle got along really well together.  Maybe now that we live closer, they will get to see each other more!

Unfortunately, my camera stopped working while we were at the party, so I only took a few pictures with my phone.  Mainly, I took pictures of my kids with Santa Clause (aka. my cousin, Mark, who did a great job!).

When Anna was on Santa’s lap, she asked for a baby doll, which was crazy b/c she hasn’t played with her babies since moving to Nashville. Well…she was in luck:

I’m not sure what Luke asked for…

…but he was very happy to get the Toy Story lego set he has been wanting:

We had a great time visiting with family, but we had to leave that same day since Luke had school the next day!

That Monday was a busy one, too.  First, Anna had her Christmas party at preschool:

Saying the prayer before treats.

Doing their gift exchange.

After Anna’s party, I headed straight for Luke’s school to help his class decorate gingerbread houses. 

Here is Luke’s finished house:

That Wednesday evening, we had the Y.E.S. Christmas party.  It was a lot of fun, but WOW.  There were a ton of kids there.  Greg and I were in charge of games, and I went with Santa bingo, b/c, well, everyone loves Santa bingo!

That’s not even all of the kids.  Needless to say, I played a lot of Santa bingo!

The next evening, Anna had her Christmas program with her preschool.  When Luke was in these programs, his nervous tic was yawning.  Watching Anna, it would appear that her nervous tic is rubbing her eyes.  However, I don’t think it was a tic.  The program started at 7:00 pm, and by the time her age group got on stage it was 7:30…which is her bedtime.  She seemed to spend most of the evening trying not to fall asleep/off the stage.

She did great, really, but she was pretty solemn throughout the performance.  And like I said, she rubbed her eyes a lot!

That brings us up to the week before Christmas.  I’ll blog about that on its own!