Saturday, January 3, 2015

Christmas 2015



This Christmas felt like a complete whirlwind! We were out of town so much it is a miracle we got our tree up before the actual day! I have to say this may have been my favorite Christmas with Mckinley so far because I think she actually understood everything this year. We went light on our Christmas decorations this year and really made it Mckinley friendly with her penguin countdown calendar and her chocolate advent calendar Jen Jen got her. These really helped her to be able to understand that we had to wait until we counted down to Christmas Day before we could celebrate and open presents.



 We had put up her Nativity over the past few years, but this was the first year she really enjoyed playing with it and it melted my heart when she would talk about baby Jesus and how we are celebrating his birfday.

We decorated cookies for Santa

We ( I ) begrudgingly attempted the Elf On The Shelf, but it was a bust from the beginning. I knew our Elf wouldn't be very naughty since I always used him in my classroom in  positive way. Instead of running off and telling Santa if the children had been naughty I had the children show the Elf all of the good choices they could make. Our Elf adventure started off with him perched on top of the Christmas tree hanging from the star with his book below the tree for us to read. Well this did not go over well and MCkinley did not even want to read the book or name her Elf which is funny because she is a bookworm and she usually loves anything Christmas. After a while she finally decided to name her Elf Bubbles. The next day her Elf was on the hand sanitizer in the bathroom and she was VERY upset he was touching her stuff. Last, but not least Bubbles the Elf was resting in a bowl of candy canes which Mckinley considers as her candy and after that she lost it and said she wanted the Elf to go away. 

We had a BLAST at Zoolights 
 
 And  we of course visited Santa so Mckinley could whisper what she wanted for Christmas. I hope he can find a yellow soccer ball.


 We started our Christmas celebration on Christmas eve like we always do at Christmas mass and then we headed over to Nonni and Car Car's for some food and fun.





Christmas morning arrived and after drinking 2 cups of coffee I finally caved and had to wake Brent and  Mckinley up around 7 we we could get the show on the road.
 




After we wrapped up our celebration we loaded up the car and headed to Yaya and Papa's house for breakfast and gifts. 



Next stop was my aunt's house for lunch with my family


And last, but not least we headed back to Car Car and Nonni's house  for our annual Christmas Day BBQ pajama party and a few more gifts.


It was definitely all a whirlwind, but it was the best Christmas yet! 

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