When we woke up Friday morning to a light dusting of snow (boy, was Chloe excited!) the Christmas bug bit me! We put up our wee artificial tree (someday I'll insist on a real one but for now this is saving us lots of money) and Chloe helped me decorate it. It's always a treat to see our memories come out of the ornament box. Last year Chloe learned what most of the ornaments were and she was able to point them out to me. Now that she's nearly 2 1/3 she's having a ball finding the ornaments on the tree and forever asking me, "What dat?" (don't you love her home-girl slang?)Saturday I dragged my hubby along with Chloe and I (he's a scrooge about most things Christmas) to Akron's holiday tree festival. The festival consists of 200 trees all decorated differently to benefit the children's hospital. Businesses or families donate the decorated artificial trees and then people shell out money to buy them. Chloe's fave was the pinocchio tree; I liked the children's book tree and Matt favored the white-lighted palm trees. :) A brass band was playing Christmas music as we strolled through the tree wonderland and we even spotted Santa and Mrs. Claus.
Though it was a chilly windy day we took our lunch sacks outside and walked two blocks to see Akron's Christmas parade. It was incredibly cold but we braved it for an hour and saw bands, big floaty balloons, lots of doggies, and Chloe even garnered a few pieces of candy. After it was all done and we were back in our snuggly warm car I asked Chloe what she saw at the parade. Her immediate response was, "Candy!" What a sweet monger.
I've got about 1/2 of my Christmas cards done though all are addressed (picked up some cheap printer labels last year that's saved me tons of time). I've inventoried my Christmas gift stash and made a list of what's left to buy. I think my nesting instinct is being swallowed up by my Christmas instinct. :) More likely is that I'm getting nervous that baby #2 will arrive any minute and God forbid that my Christmas cards wouldn't get mailed on time. That's the weird rationale of a pregnant mind for you . . .
What Christmas preparations have you made thus far? What special Christmas activities are you planning?
5 comments:
hi alicia, the tree festival sounds so fun.
i am making a lot of homemade christmas gifts this year, and i am done with about 1/2 of them. and i am finished christmas shopping for my nieces and nephews. - no christmas letters out yet. i don't know if i will get that far. maybe a few.
i will be praying for your baby's arrival. what a blessing.
take care!
janelle
looks like you had fun! i love 'dusts' of snow also, but we rarely get any! i look forward to decorating when we get home.
did you hear we're having a boy too? we both had girls first and now boys...you can pass along any tips you have to my facebook or email account! you don't have much longer to go now! i'm 22 weeks thursday, so i am just past halfway. this second time seems to be flying by but it's also been interesting keeping up with a toddler.
What a great way to raise money for a children's hospital and give the public a pretty show! :-)
What, no pictures of YOU? C'mon, please???
I've been making gifts for awhile now (don't tell, but lots of people are getting reusable shopping bags this year! Hurray for using up all the yardage I've had stashed for ages! I'll post pictures post-Christmas!) I have tried to buy some gifts on clearance for little people in our family throughout the year. I have a few yard sale finds that need scrubbing before I can wrap them for Aaron. I sent out the first Christmas package yesterday!
And I'm also updating our card address list - we keep it in label format so we can just print & stick every year!
We are thrilled to be traveling this year to CO. This will most likely be the last time 3 of us can fly for the price of 2 unless by some miracle we can go again before next August.
It's snowing RIGHT NOW outside my window. I just love winter!
I'm a little bit jealous of your snow! I love the winter and snow and everything that goes along with it!
I've definitely been bit also by that Christmas "bug"! It actually took longer this year than most. I keep telling my husband that he's rubbing off on me! He's a little like your husband and is a scrooge when it comes to this time of year. He is a good sport for my sake anyway!
We put up our tree on Friday night also! This is definitely my favorite time of the year! I want to say a shout out to artificial trees! They save you TONS of money and sometimes are prettier than the real thing!
I've started my Christmas cards (It's become a tradition that I make them each year). Not really done any Christmas shopping yet, but this year is going to be a little more scaled down than usual so hopefully it won't take very long.
The festival that you guys went to sounds so great! I would LOVE to go to something like that! We are going to try to go to Zoolights that they have here. We were going to last year, but we all got sick and never made it. Glad you guys got to get out and enjoy some of the Christmas festivities!
hey alicia, sound like a great time. We haven't put anything up yet. We were able to buy an artificial tree last year when they were clearanced. Tom is allergic to the real ones and we decided this was the best route for him. We'll probably decorate in between projects and studying for up coming final exams. :)
We were actually driving through that "dusting" last weekend coming back from paxton, Ill, which is 2 hrs. south of Chicago. We hit snow around St. Joseph, MI which was actually more like 2-3 inches. But by the time we got home to GR, there wasn't any snow.
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