Christmas happenings

I've been too busy packing, organizing, list making, crying and house hunting to blog much lately. Not to mention that my phone, computer and car all died within a 24 hour time period. I've been busy doing adult things which is much less enjoyable than I anticipated when I was 12. I have seventy Christmas things I want to do before we leave and I'm determined to do it all. It's very important to me that we have as normal a Christmas as possible, even with all the crazy. 

We went to a Christmas party at the library and saw our fourth Santa of the year. Sesame is normally very observant but she hasn't noticed they all look different and that two of them were less than stellar. She told me she brought her sled and reindeer but she had to leave them in the car "to charge." There was craft making, cookie eating and face painting. Annabelle loves any event with face painting so she was thrilled to become a mini Rudolph.

For the last three years we've visited the Christmas Cottage. It's so charming I want to live there all December.

We went with our Christmas jammies this year, partly because they're cute and partly because they didn't require ironing. She told him she wants a marble track and cars. She previously told me she wants luggage so evidently she has multiple lists. 

I didn't think we'd get to do our North Pole breakfast but we squeezed it in. I used my fancy dollar store china plates and found some fuzzy decorations to use as snowballs. We had bacon and pancakes in the shape of snowflakes, gingerbread men and stockings. When AB first saw it she said, "Wow, Mommy! It's perfect!" A few minutes later she walked through and said, "It doesn't really look like the North Pole in here." Such a temperamental audience. 

The weather cooperated nicely. 

After breakfast we went to Seneca Falls, the inspiration for the town of Bedford Falls from It's a Wonderful Life which is only my favorite Christmas movie of all time. Had I been born several decades earlier I would have had a poster of Jimmy Stewart up on my wall and dreamed of marrying him. Although to be honest I don't see why I can't have a poster him on my current bedroom wall. Surely Christopher wouldn't mind.

"George Bailey, I'll love you til the day I die."

By sheer coincidence, earlier in the week we saw the actress who plays Zuzu in the movie at a children's museum. I drilled it into AB's head that she played the little girl in the Christmas movie I watch every year. I assumed it was falling on deaf ears but when we were in the Bedford Falls museum she yelled out, "That lady is from your favorite show, Mama!" My job here is done. I have raised her well.

God smiled upon us and sent us multiple feet of snow. The females of the family could not be more thrilled. The male of the family is not as enthusiastic.

The very short trip from the top of the hill to the bottom gives her the thrill of a lifetime.