Gearing up for Christmas

It felt like the shortest Christmas season because of the late Thanksgiving, but we still tried to hit all the high points of the season!  We celebrated with friends and family, enjoyed lots of dinners and treats, partied at school, and got ready for Santa. Snowflake came with his annual PJs (and tried each and every day to hide high enough to stay out of Tilly's mouth.) 

Wesley reading to Snowflake (hiding in the basket!)

My mom sent the kiddos their annual advent calendar and those provided daily morning fun (for the kids...and for Tilly)

Some new things that we did this year!  Our bunco group decided to dress in holiday PJs, which added a whole new element of fun.  James and I also attended the annual gala for the Coastal Empire Habitat for Humanity and enjoyed a fancy evening with friends (while the kids stayed behind and attending the Ford tree lighting with Gia).

Our church ended our first semester of JAM with a fun Christmas program on Wednesday AND Sunday. Kids did great.

Gia and I took the littler kids to see Rudolph at the Savannah Children's theater. Super impressed with what the kids and teens put on! 

We got our annual Nutcrackers from Aunt Shawntel! The kids have so many now that they put them up in their rooms as part of their "room decorations"(we've gotten out of control with decorating for Christmas...)

Dress up...so much dress up.  Thankfully we found some great stuff at HEB (during our Thanksgiving trip) and the Dollar Store is right down the street!

One of the coolest things of the Christmas season: Maryn had written a letter to Snowflake back in November that she asked me to mail but not read.  (She shared with my friend - who quietly shared with me - that she told Snowflake that all she wanted was a picture of her and Enda because she missed her so much.)  We found the address for the North Pole online and I sent it his way.  I took a picture for evidence as Maryn was SUPER insistent that I mailed it at the actual post office!

In December we received a package through Operation Santa, where a kind soul somewhere in America had helped Santa with fulfilling some of these special wishes.  The box contained a frame with Enda's name for a picture, plus all sorts of other goodies to help remember our pet.  How incredibly kind and generous!!

We had several Christmas parties at school to end a GREAT first half of the semester before starting a long (very long) break... (Sadly Wesley missed his party due to a virus! But we made good use of the 1:1 time to deliver all our Christmas cards and spiced pecans to our Ford friends.)

Which leads up right up to....Christmas!  We celebrated not one, not two, but THREE Christmases in our family.  Lots of fun :)