Christmas Traditions!

Since we're new at this Christmas with a kid thing, we are slowly building our Christmas traditions!
This year we decided to stay home for Christmas and I'm so glad we did! It was completely worth it!

Christmas Eve!

Earlier in the day, Luke was allowed to open his last Advent book! It was the Polar Express which he immediately wanted Dave to read to him! Here are the 24 books that he opened this year!

We also made some Christmas cookies and Luke was able to help decorate them this year!

On Christmas Eve, Luke was allowed to open one present! Inside were his Christmas PJs, a book (we recorded Rudolph for a keepsake), and a few small animals- he loves those little things!

He then put on his new Christmas PJs and we went to the PIR lightshow. But of course we stopped for hot chocolate first!




Luke is still rearfacing in his carseat (and won't outgrow the weight limits for awhile at this rate) but for the lightshow we decided to forward face him (don't worry it's switched back already)! The lightshow is at a raceway so it's off the main road and it's just a very slow line of cars going probably about 3 MPH. They gave him a candy cane so of course that was a big hit! He really enjoyed the light displays and was telling us what everything was- "snowman, Santa, reindeer, dog, bear, snowman, candy, ball, boat, Santa, duck, snowman"... for 30 minutes straight :) 


When we got home from the lightshow, we played some more, had a Christmas Eve dinner then Luke went to bed! Santa was coming and we needed to get ready!

We put all the gifts out, cleaned up the house, then Dave and I worked on some Lego sets he was displaying in his Christmas (Lego) village. It was a really nice night! Then we went off to bed!

 

I got up early Christmas morning to get the monkey bread in the oven and make sure I was ready when Luke got up! I wanted to capture this special morning on video!

We opened gifts and tried them all out! Luke had a lot of fun opening gifts and played with all his new toys.

Then we sat down for Christmas breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and monkeybread (all egg free of course). My pinterest Santa pancakes didn't come out as I imagined :) but they tasted delicious!

After playing some more, it was nap time and we all decided to rest!

Christmas dinner was salad, beans, filet mignons, mac and cheese, and mashed potatoes. Dessert was Christmas Cookies, apple pie, and Santa cheesecakes!

We are so thankful for another amazing Christmas with family. It was a beautiful day and I am a lucky mommy!

Christmas Season... Updates

I posted a few weeks ago about our plans for the holidays this year... you can read about those here!

Here are some of the updates for now...

We have set up our tree and Luke loves to play in the living room and yell LIGHTS and TREE. He has tried to play with the ornaments a few times but for the most part he leaves the tree alone.

Some of his favorite holiday words are: Santa, Snowman, and Reindeer. He's really into talking about them and labeling them EVERYWHERE

Speaking of which... we took Luke to visit Santa. On the way there, he kept babbling about Santa this and Santa that. When we got to the Santa Village at the mall, there was a huge poster of Santa- he was pointing and yelling "Hi Santa!"
Then he saw the kids before us sitting on his lap... he immediately grabbed my arm very tightly. When it was his turn, he was not a fan AT ALL and it was a short and sweet visit with Mr. Claus this year.
After we walked around the mall, the next time he passed Santa he pointed and was happy saying "Hi Santa" and when I asked him if he liked Santa he says, "Yeah"

Christmas Light Displays
Zoo Lights! When we had family in town visiting, we were able to enjoy zoo lights. It was a nice night before the cold came and we had a fun time walking around. He was really into the lights and could even identify animals that I wasn't sure about (some of the light displays are hard to figure out).

On Christmas Eve we drove through the Winter Wonderland display at Portland International Raceway. We picked up some hot chocolate first, put Christmas music on the radio and enjoyed our drive! It was a nice display and will be part of our Christmas Eve traditions!



 Gifts
last post I was undecided on who the 4 gifts were going to be from... since he didn't really need to know this year, we didn't bother deciding. I guess we will have to decide by next year! We did leave 2 bigger gifts unwrapped which to both of us is what Santa did so that might be how it goes! Then we will just get the 4 gifts for each other. Next year, Dave might be completely in charge of my 4 as a surprise. We will see :)


Advent Books!
Luke has loved opening a book everyday and I'm so glad we decided to start this tradtion. One added benefit that I didn't realize was that he gets to practice unwrapping gifts (perfect age for this now). He has enjoyed most of the books and likes taking them all out of the basket. Some he likes more than others and some are paperbacks (he has mostly board books still) because I wanted more for long-term. He reads them all and gets so excited when the day's book is waiting for him under the tree! I will put all the books away with our Christmas stuff and wrap them back up next year (minus a few board books that I'll replace with other Christmas stories)

His Christmas Eve gift this year will be his XMas PJs, a book (Rudolph recorded by mommy and daddy), and his Elmo ornament.

Christmas Card
My best friend took adorable pics of Luke in his PJs and was able to get a family shot for us too! He loved candycanes (it was the first time he had one and with his allergies he's not allowed to have any candy!)