In The Holiday Spirit

We hadn't planned to, but tonight turned in to a pre-Christmas celebration.

Since it was so cold and windy out tonight, we decided to snuggle up together as a family. I remembered that the Family Channel had already started showing their Christmas specials, so we turned it on, and watched "Nester the Christmas Donkey," while the snowman cookies were baking. Gracie got to place the dough on the cookie tray, which is something she really enjoys(second only to eating them).

We ate the cookies and had some hot chocolate before heading in to mommy & daddy's room for books. Garren and I were in a Christmas mood after watching the Rankin/Bass 1970 something special, so we read the Christmas Story from Gracie's children's Bible, "Away in A Manger," "Christmas Is Coming," "Baby's First Christmas," and "January is For Snow."

I went to the basement this afternoon and brought up the Christmas wreath for the front door. The autumn one looked out of place. Gracie and I also made a homemade Advent wreath for the table too. I had her make the wreath out of her green fingerpainted handprints. I added some red dots of paint for holly berry's, and I cut out and colored five Advent candles from paper. I cut out paper "flames" and we will paste them to the candles, one each Sunday of this month. Garren mentioned tonight that he would like to make a real Advent wreath with candles and such. Maybe we will get the supplies tomorrow.

We are looking forward to doing holiday activities this month. We will have to find out dates for Christmas parades around the area, and there is a light display at the park in Winchester. Of course we will also see the man in red and ride the train in Lynchburg. Gracie is at a wonderful age this year for Christmas. I will be excited to see how she interprets all of it. We will likely hold off on the tree though. But, maybe she will be patient enough to help hang the ornaments. I plan to pull out only the wooden one for her safety (and ours!).

** The picture is from December 2004 (Gracie's first Christmas), and now you see why we are waiting to put up the tree!!! It's a blurry picture because I snapped it quickly, catching her in the act of pulling the lights off the tree!!****

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