Enchanted Tree Lighting Ceremony
The Friday after Thanksgiving we went to Hyde Park for their Enchanted Tree Lighting Ceremony to kick off the holiday season. We meet my friend, Tiffany and her family there. We had a lot of fun eating chocolate from the sweets shop and wait excitedly for Jolly Old St. Nicholas to come an light up the 30-foot Christmas Tree. Yay! It is officially Christmas time!
Deck the Halls
The weekend after Thanksgiving we broke out the Christmas decorations!
Dan is in charge of the outside decorations and last year he surprised me with a giant blow up Christmas Elephant. Ha! We also have some cute light up Christmas trees for our yard. This year we added candy cane solar lights to our walkway. If we keep up this pace our house is going to look like the Griswold's in 5-10 years!!
Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments
This is a new tradition we started. They are so easy to made and smell AMAZING!
All you need is combine 1/2 cup applesauce and 1/2 cup cinnamon together. Then add 2 TBSP of glue and mix well. Once the mixture has formed into a dough ball, remove it from the bowl and place it onto wax paper. Then, with a rolling pin, roll out the dough and cut out shapes. Next you will take your shapes and place them on a cookie sheet and bake at 150 degrees for 2 hours. Then, turn off the heat in the oven and leave the pan in the warm oven for 5 to 6 hours. I just leave mine in the oven overnight.
They make super cute gifts too!
Christmas Pajamas
I bought Evan's Christmas pajamas! I can't wait to see my little boy go to bed on Christmas Eve wearing them.
Santa's Post Office
At every Macy's across the county there is a mailbox to collect letters to Santa Clause. We brought Evan's stamped letter to Macy's addressed to Santa at the North Pole, and drop it into Santa's special mailbox. For each letter recieved there will be a $1 donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, up to $1,000,000.
I just wrote a letter to Santa!
Picture on Santa's Lap
The week after Thanksgiving we went to Citrus Mall to get Evan's picture taken with Santa. It is so nice because there is never anyone in line and we don't have to feel rushed. I was not feeling confident that we would be able to get a good picture of Evan on Santa's lap. Well, we found the trick... Evan was fine as long as I wasn't the one to put him down on Santa's lap! When Dan took him up to Santa he did great!! I love his smile! I posted the picture from last year too... it is amazing to see how much he has grown over the last year!
Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree!
We decided this year to get a artificial Christmas Tree. This was a hard decision for we because we love getting real trees, but Evan and my sinus' were really bad this year. The tree we got is beautiful though. The only thing missing was the smell of the tree. So I went out on a mission to find the best smelling Christmas tree spray- it made all the difference! My sister and her fiance, Jess joined us for a cozy night at home decorating our tree. Every year since Dan and I started dating we decorate our tree with Christmas music playing in the background and with a mug of hot chocolate! Evan is so fascinated with the tree!
We have so much to look forward to in the next few weeks... making and addressing Christmas cards, making Reindeer Food, making homemade cookies for Santa, reading The Night Before Christmas, hanging Santa's magic key on the front door, driving around looking at Christmas lights, watching Christmas movies, counting down Christmas on our Advent calender, drinking lots of hot chocolate, and spending lot of time with with my little family! I LOVE this time of year!!
Dan, Evan and I star in an Elf music video again this year! haha!
