We've got that Christmas Feelin

Since we didn't do too much for Halloween or Thanksgiving, I wanted to make sure that this Christmas season was filled with a lot of memory making. And it's been a lot of fun!!

We've worn our Christmas shirts...

We made Christmas ornaments...
(actually this one was made by our great Nursery workers at church) 

We went to the Mall to see the decorations/giant Christmas tree....

 And saw Santa!
Actually they saw Santa twice this year. Once at our ward party and then again at the mall. 

How do you ensure your children will be happy when they see Santa?
Feed them white chocolate popcorn the whole time you wait in line.
And then reward them with pretzels afterwords and call it good for dinner. 

We took some Christmas flowers to my mom's grave & talked about eternal families. 

We made homemade Chocolate cupcakes with Oreo cream cheese frosting for Patrick's team at work.
8 dozen to be exact. 

We made Oreo truffles for our neighbors so that hopefully they will like us this next year and forgive us when we do things like let our cat roam the neighborhood, let the dog bark when he's in time out outside, have a few overgrown weeds, and other such not so nice neighbor things. 

 And then there were the decorations!
Snowflakes and paper chain in the family room... 

Christmas wreath I made for the front door....

Our Christmas card display.... 

Our Nutcracker collection/Christmas countdown 

 More decorations on top of the piano... 

Including the Nativity complete with homemade Egyptian sarcophagus (yeah I dont know, it was in the box with the Nativity stuff so it got displayed)  

Pictures hanging depicting the Nativity Scene 

And our Christmas tree!!
Dead Live tree of course. 

And Preston's contribution to decorating the tree, laying all the ordainment I gave him flat on the tree. 

And there has been other stuff too like

Temple lights

Sending out Christmas Cards (hope you got yours) 

Family Christmas Eve party (yet to happen)
Christmas Eve White Chicken Chili (yet to happen)

Taking walks to look at Christmas lights

Non-Stop Christmas music in the car/kitchen (sorry Patrick) 

and I'm sure more that I can't think of right now!

I've loved it all. It hasn't felt like we are forgetting the reason for the season, just feels like we are creating memories and growing closer as a family. 

I can't WAIT for the boys to see their christmas gifts!