Pre-Christmas Celebrations

Christmas has been a total blast this year. We've made sure to do a lot of Christmasy activities to prepare Audia and get in the spirit, and boy did it work! She had so much fun and is still talking about all the things we did (and, of course, asking if we can do them again!)

Decorating an apartment is a bit different than decorating a house....especially since our complex doesn't allow real trees (Bah Humbug!), but limitations aside, I had a lot of fun with it, and Audia loves the Christmas tree even though it's fake.

About a month before Christmas, we kicked things off with our annual trip to the mall with N and A to get the girls' photo taken with Santa. Neither of the girls wanted to sit on Santa's lap this year, so us Mommy's had to get in the photo too.

The majority of our Christmas activities started two weeks before Christmas. We started with a trip downtown with my parents for dinner and to see Macy's 'A Day in the Life of an Elf.' When I was a kid, Macy's was Dayton's (and then Marshall Field's) and every year they had a different story set up. The past few years (since Macy's bought Marshall Field's, I think) have been the same show, but Audia's never seen it and she sure seemed to enjoy it!

After the floor show, we went outside and waited in the bitter cold (ok, maybe not bitter, but it was pretty darn cold!) to see the Holidazzle light parade. Audia was in heaven! She loves seeing all the Christmas lights when we go driving at night, and to have thousands of them rolling by her on floats was like a dream come true.

A couple of days later, we joined my parents again for 'Snack with Santa' at the Zoo. Audia loved watching Santa from afar, but once he came around to our table she became shy, and yet again we were forced to join her on Santa's lap. She asked Santa for "Books, teeth, and babies!" and he gave her an adorable stuffed monkey.

Later that day we had our Annual Snow Bocce Tournament. Audia loved seeing all her friends, and of course Chris and I did too. Now that we're parents, it's a lot harder to make plans and get out to see our friends, so our Bocce parties are a good way to catch up with friends we don't get to see as often as we'd like.

A few days later, my dear friend E, who I've known for 24 years, was in town visiting and stopped by for a playdate with me and Audia. Audia certainly loves her Auntie Em!

Our big present from our parents this year was a new mattress (it was desperately needed!), and the place that we got our mattress from had a raffle for an amish doll bed. Well, lucky us! We won the bed! So the day before Christmas Eve, we went over to the store and picked it up as an early Christmas present for the munchkin. Fievel, however, seems to have claimed ownership. He is even sleeping on it now as I write this entry!