Florida Christmas

It is really hard for me to get in the Christmas spirit in Florida.  When we are wearing our shorts and frequenting the Park to play – it just doesn’t seem like December.   We planned some fun little activities to do in the days leading up to Christmas to try and get into the spirit.  With a new baby I wanted to go with “easy” so we wrapped up our Christmas books again this year for a book advent type thing.   Shaef got to open a book everyday and we had an activity or treat that went along with each book.  Well there is no fooling this 4 year old and the first day, after opening the first book, he said “Hey! We already have this book….” And was very disappointed that it wasn’t anything new!  He gave up on being disappointed and started enjoying the festivities…..for the most part.  He loved the Christmas movies that we watched and he loves to read so reading the books was fun.  He also enjoyed most of the crafts but the “mom failure” came with the creative treats that we tried to make.  Apparently making snowmen faces out of white powder doughnuts is “weird” and decorating sugar cookies is  a waste of time when all either of my boys want to eat is just the frosting and the cookie.  (Pinterest, thank you for giving me all these ideas I am dying to do with my family……when they would rather just eat store bought cookies.)  The failure is now noted and in the future we will go back to the basics and choose activities very carefully!

One win was a tradition that my parents helped us to start.  My talented mom made a quilt for us with a cute little poem about how each night someone new in the family gets to sleep with the quilt and then Santa can curl up in the Quilt on Christmas Eve.  We would cuddle up with the quilt as we read our book for the day and then let each person have a night to sleep with the quilt.  It is a fun little tradition and Shaefer felt so lucky to sleep with it.  Anson was given a Christmas pillowcase when he was younger and we let Shaef put it on his bed all December so he has a special bed for the whole month. 

Some highlights for us were spending time in the light of the Christmas Tree, seeing Santa at the ward Christmas party, and building a fire on the few nights that it was actually below 60 degrees! 

Of course Iron Man had to be a part of the festivities.

Our little reindeer craft. 

Dad's reindeer didn't really work too well.....

I love being able to dress up my kids in matching Church clothes!