Christmas

 Our family LOVES Christmas...my husband seriously had the icicle lights up on our house on NOVEMBER 3RD. In all honesty, I was slightly embarrassed, but he absolutely insisted.  We have some old family traditions that we love to participate in with our extended family, and we also love starting new traditions of our own.  Nick and I did these sorts of things and loved Christmas even before having Max, but this time of year is even more fun when we get to see it through his eyes.  Last year was amazing, even though he was only about 8 or 9 months old...but this year? Fantastic. In every single way.

Every time we go out at night he points out the lights, he loves dancing to Christmas music with me, and he just has this sense of awe and wonderment that is contagious to us all.  He points out decorations and wrapped gifts and calls them "pretty," and he has loved helping to pick out gifts for all the people on our list.  

One of the traditions we started this year is an advent calendar, and it's not exactly the typical way of counting down to Christmas.  We got a traditional advent calendar from Target (the reusable kind with a door for each day), BUT rather than having a piece of candy to eat each day or a little trinket being inside each door, we have a note in each door.  Each note has an activity for us to do as a family that day.  Some days we have watched holiday classic movies like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and others are things like Christmas shopping or "family Starbucks date."  It has been so much fun and Max has LOVED it.  I highly recommend doing this!

Just 10 days until Christmas, ya'll!