Christmas smorgasbord

I'm about to give you a full dose of our Christmas month of celebration...better known as Christmas smorgasbord. You know, kind of like when you have the most random meal ever known to man with leftover mashed potatoes, spaghetti, chicken noodle soup so that you can go one more night without cooking. Yea, just like that.

In an effort to not post Christmas pictures until February, I'm giving you a glutinous portion whether you're ready for it or not. Hope you've got elastic pants on and that you're in a Christmas mood because there's not room for any "Grinchiness" over here. Because when it comes to Christmas, we go full throttle.

We trimmed our tree Thanksgiving weekend. Yes, it took two days. But I'm pretty proud of the fact that it ONLY took two days. With the amount of Christmas we put out, hearing "I'm hungry" every couple of hours and nursing the baby every 3 hours, I'd say that's pretty darn good.

  I gotta say, Landry looks like she's gotta fit right in lovin' her some Christmas.

And I can't believe that the tree has been left alone this year. Well, I take that back. Nolan makes ornaments almost daily (out of the most random materials). I'm proud to say I'm embracing the fact that our tree isn't "showroom" ready but it's definitely a showroom of our children.

I absolutely love the movie Elf. I'm not sure if my favorite part of this picture is the fact that they're captivated watching Elf or that they're snuggling while they're watching it.

Next year, I have a feeling a certain Miss is going to have her hands all over that tree. And in case you're wondering how many ornaments a baby needs to commemorate her first Christmas....we're at three and still counting.

The house and tree weren't the only things decorated around here. Nope, Landry was equally trimmed. I'm pretty sure she has an outfit for the 12 days of Christmas. 

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We've had a lot of fun with Pickles, our elf. I see all these posts on Facebook and Pinterest with all these elaborate mischievous things that others have their elves up to. We hardly have time to move the darn thing. One night we even forgot and had to do some major covering. And, my boys are mischievous enough as it is...I don't need to be giving them any ideas. 

The elf is great but not as great as the big man in the red suit downtown. This was our second attempt to see him after seeing a line that was way too long and in the bitter cold. 

Waiting really was half the fun. I think the kids thought they were in Candyland.

 I'm so glad we waited. He beats any mall Santa any day. 

Although, Cam looked like he could have waited a little bit longer...

 

My favorite part of this picture is that Campbell is surely thinking, "I got my eye on you, Santa."

 

Landry was such a trooper even though she could hardly see with her little crocheted hat. The things we put our kids through for the cuteness factor.

Grandma and Granddad joined in on the Santa fun and like always, we discover it's a good thing that they're coming for backup until we keep working on fine tuning our zone defense now that we're outnumbered.

 Santa visit...check!

 

You know Santa has a lot on his plate and so we decided we better write him a letter just to make sure that he knew what the boys wanted. (And we had to get this down on paper...Christmas lists were changing way too much for this mama trying to get shopping done). 

Yeah, my baby is reading. We grow geniuses in our family.

And we definitely grow sweet big brothers...well to their sister, at least.

 

I'm amazed at Nolan's ability to write nearly all of his letter. He has come so far from last year. We only had to help him with a few words but he was deep in thought over that list. We have the boys narrow it down to three things because the wise men brought Jesus three gifts and he has so many other children to deliver to. The rest will be up to us or the grandparents. 

 

Campbell was able to draw what he wanted with a little help from his artistic older brother. 

 

Pickles was watching the whole time from an ornament in the tree. So it was really convenient that he could just take the letters with him to the North Pole on his way.

But my favorite moment after all the craziness of seeing Santa, wrapping presents, and shopping are the sweet moments like this that no present can even compare.

I sometimes feel that all this "Santa is watching you" and accidentally touching the elf that causes a meltdown about his magic being gone might land my kids in therapy. I really hope not. I want my kids to look back at Christmas knowing the true reason we celebrate it, that giving is better than receiving and that their mama loved her some Christmas and did her best to make sure that memories were made.