Santa baby, I want a yacht and really that's not a lot
Been an angel all year
Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight
Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight
We've been listening to some Christmas music around here. :-) It's really cute, I've caught Lily humming "Happy Holidays" and she can sing "Jingle Bells". She's definitely our musical child. Oh, and "fa la la la". She sings that too.
Andrew was out of town this weekend to schmooze with the 49ers and Jets clients at the game in San Francisco. So the girls and I came up with various holiday activities to occupy us. We attempted a little Santa penguin art project. It was a pom pom kit. Didn't really work out. The glue wasn't sticking. Very frustrating (at least for me. When asked
later in the day what her favorite part of the day was, Ella said making the penguin. So apparently we had different experiences with it). :-)
I also got out the box of Christmas Little People and told the girls to work together to build a Santa village. Here's a photo from that. This was taken about 30 seconds before they lost interest in the "working together" part of my project. Funny sidenote though: Various pieces of the Christmas Little People sets play music when you push on them. Lily brought two pieces that light up and play music up to my bathroom this morning while I was in the shower. She set them up and pressed them to play the music and then ran away. I guess this was her version of ding dong ditch. ;-)
After playing outside in the snow while I shoveled, we came inside and started writing letters to Santa. The girls have
made it very clear to me that we will not be visiting Santa in person this year (so no Santa pictures. ;-( I let them know that we could write a letter to Santa instead, so he would still know what they wanted. In November, we visited Toys R Us as a family so they could do a little Christmas browsing to decide what they really REALLY wanted this year. We had a conversation about how Santa can only bring one or two gifts to each child because he has so many gifts to give out on Christmas Eve. So they might not get EVERYTHING they ask for. I was planning on having them write letters and then dropping them in our mailbox for the mailman to take. BUT, when we were at Chaska Community Center for Ella's speech appointment last week, we noticed a mailbox there. It was specifically for Santa! AND "Santa" will write a letter back to the child if you leave your letter there. PERFECT! So Saturday night the girls and I worked on their letters. Here's some photos:
Lily's letter says: Dear Santa, I really like the Princess cash register I saw at Target with my mom. I really want Santa to write me a letter. I'm excited for you to bring me a present. I have been good this year. Merry Christmas! Lily (She actually told me most of that. I added the "good this year" part.)
Here is Ella's: Dear Santa, For Christmas I would like the white toy kitty I saw at the toy store. I was very good this year for Mom and Dad. Hope you have a good trip to give all the gifts. I'll leave some milk and cookies for you. Ella PS. I would also like the baby doll I saw. Merry Christmas. (She, obviously, wrote the Dear Santa and the Merry at the end. If you look really close, you can see the Santa she drew at the bottom in the middle. And those are ornaments she drew all the way around.) But look at her envelope! Isn't it cute?
Can you read the P.P.S.? She wanted to make sure Santa knew about our outside Christmas lights because it would make it really easy to find our house :-)
We'll see if we hear back from Santa. We had a lot of fun doing the letters. It's been a lot of fun this year. Ella has had a lot of questions about Santa. How does he get in? How does he get through the glass of our fireplace? How do the letters get to him? Where is the North Pole, etc.
Enough rambling for one night, I'll close with a cute photo of Ella in her Santa hat. I made this for her two years ago. She didn't wear it at all last year. She found it in the closet two days ago and hasn't taken it off since. In fact, she's even slept in it the last two nights and wore it all day at school today. I just find that adorable.
Andrew was out of town this weekend to schmooze with the 49ers and Jets clients at the game in San Francisco. So the girls and I came up with various holiday activities to occupy us. We attempted a little Santa penguin art project. It was a pom pom kit. Didn't really work out. The glue wasn't sticking. Very frustrating (at least for me. When asked
later in the day what her favorite part of the day was, Ella said making the penguin. So apparently we had different experiences with it). :-)I also got out the box of Christmas Little People and told the girls to work together to build a Santa village. Here's a photo from that. This was taken about 30 seconds before they lost interest in the "working together" part of my project. Funny sidenote though: Various pieces of the Christmas Little People sets play music when you push on them. Lily brought two pieces that light up and play music up to my bathroom this morning while I was in the shower. She set them up and pressed them to play the music and then ran away. I guess this was her version of ding dong ditch. ;-)
After playing outside in the snow while I shoveled, we came inside and started writing letters to Santa. The girls have
made it very clear to me that we will not be visiting Santa in person this year (so no Santa pictures. ;-( I let them know that we could write a letter to Santa instead, so he would still know what they wanted. In November, we visited Toys R Us as a family so they could do a little Christmas browsing to decide what they really REALLY wanted this year. We had a conversation about how Santa can only bring one or two gifts to each child because he has so many gifts to give out on Christmas Eve. So they might not get EVERYTHING they ask for. I was planning on having them write letters and then dropping them in our mailbox for the mailman to take. BUT, when we were at Chaska Community Center for Ella's speech appointment last week, we noticed a mailbox there. It was specifically for Santa! AND "Santa" will write a letter back to the child if you leave your letter there. PERFECT! So Saturday night the girls and I worked on their letters. Here's some photos:
Lily's letter says: Dear Santa, I really like the Princess cash register I saw at Target with my mom. I really want Santa to write me a letter. I'm excited for you to bring me a present. I have been good this year. Merry Christmas! Lily (She actually told me most of that. I added the "good this year" part.)
Here is Ella's: Dear Santa, For Christmas I would like the white toy kitty I saw at the toy store. I was very good this year for Mom and Dad. Hope you have a good trip to give all the gifts. I'll leave some milk and cookies for you. Ella PS. I would also like the baby doll I saw. Merry Christmas. (She, obviously, wrote the Dear Santa and the Merry at the end. If you look really close, you can see the Santa she drew at the bottom in the middle. And those are ornaments she drew all the way around.) But look at her envelope! Isn't it cute?
Can you read the P.P.S.? She wanted to make sure Santa knew about our outside Christmas lights because it would make it really easy to find our house :-)
We'll see if we hear back from Santa. We had a lot of fun doing the letters. It's been a lot of fun this year. Ella has had a lot of questions about Santa. How does he get in? How does he get through the glass of our fireplace? How do the letters get to him? Where is the North Pole, etc.
Enough rambling for one night, I'll close with a cute photo of Ella in her Santa hat. I made this for her two years ago. She didn't wear it at all last year. She found it in the closet two days ago and hasn't taken it off since. In fact, she's even slept in it the last two nights and wore it all day at school today. I just find that adorable.
3 comments:
What great memories!! My sister and I were just talking about how we wanted to start collecting Christmas toys (like the little people stuff) so our kids would have special toys to play with during the holidays. And I love that you write letters to Santa! I cannot wait to do that with Samantha. So do you give Ella all the answers to her questions or say that you do not know and leave it a mystery? I have always wondered if I will create this elaborate lie about Santa and answer all those questions or if I will just play dumb.
Yes, I think this year has been the most fun for Christmas so far. The girls are really into everything (well, except the visiting Santa part). I do answer all of Ella's questions. I just say that Santa has magic to allow him to get down the chimney and through glass or anything else in his way. We've watched quite a few holiday shows and movies, and read Christmas books, which has helped her understand the whole thing too. Polar Express is a good one. And in Fred Claus (which is mostly boring for the kids) there is a great scene where you see kids write letters to Santa, the letters reaching the North Pole, and then the elves making the toys the kids asked for. We actually watched that the night we wrote our Santa letters, so that helped solidify things in their minds. If you choose to be mysterious, I'd like to hear how that goes. ;-) That wouldn't work in our house, they'd just keep asking until I gave them an answer.
So cute. Brianna is so excited for Christmas. Although she really wanted "her baby" for Christmas, so I think she is happy regardless. She has started asking what Santa is going to bring Bryce. Kids make the holidays so much fun. On a completely other note...Thank you so much for the baby gift! The hat and fish are so adorable! I can't believe you made them (well I can, but wow, it is impressive!) The hat fits perfectly and he looks adorable in it! I'm sending you an email with a picture of him in it. Thanks again! :)
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