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!)