Our December Activities

Every year as Christmas rolls around, I have BIG plans.  Plans that include: going to Temple Square to see the lights, reading a Christmas story with the kids every night until Christmas, cuddling on the couch while watching Christmas movies, relaxing and enjoying the Christmas season with the family, filling up our advent calendar with different activities to enjoy together... among many others.  Well, I didn't do any of it!  Okay, I did one or two things on my plan, but, like usual, Christmas came and went in a fast whirlwind.  It seemed like we had just put up the tree and the next day we were taking it down.  In actuality, it had been up since Thanksgiving.

This year was a little different from years past.  The kids were on A track in school instead of B which means they were in school for December.  I thought this was going to be great!  I can shop for presents while they are in school, but with Alex in morning Kindergarten and my lack of motivation to get ready before 10:00, I found that plan backfired.  At least when I knew the kids were going to be home in the month of December, I worked hard to have all presents bought by the end of November.  At any rate, this year I did most of my shopping online which I actually really liked.  A few clicks of the mouse and the UPS man delivers it right to my front door.  No crowds, no dragging the kids to 50 different stores, just easy peasy!  Guess it didn't matter that I wasn't ready for the day before 10:00.  Don't get me wrong, I still fought the crowds and went from store to store looking for certain items.

But, in the midst of the chaos that was December, we did do some fun things.  Abbi had her very first piano recital and she did an awesome job!  We are so proud of her.  She is doing great with the piano and her teacher told she wished she had more students like her.

We also took the kids to the Angel Tree where we chose two kids.  They were the same ages as Adam and Abbi.  The kids had a lot of fun shopping at Target for these two kids and were able to pick out an outfit and a toy for each of them.  

Aaron and I went to La Quaille for the very first time with Aaron's Entrepreneur group.  It was fun to get dressed up and go to a fancy dinner.  Even better because we didn't have to pay for it!

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the cute chocolate covered strawberry.  So stinkin' cute!

With the help of Grandpa and Grandma McGee, we made our annual gingerbread house.  There may or may not have been a frosting fight somewhere in there too.

 

And, of course, we made cookies for Santa.  Can I just say I love cake mix cookies?  So quick and easy and you don't have to roll out dough 10 times to cut out the cookies.  The kids had a lot of fun decorating them for Santa.  Alex even got out some carrots for the reindeer.

All in all, I think it was a great December.  We were able to do some fun things and hopefully the kids will have some fun memories to look back on even if we didn't do all the things on my "perfect Christmas" list.  At least we were all together.