12 Days Of Christmas

During the 12 Days Of Christmas, my kids get a different stocking everyday with an activity written on the back.

Day 1: Make A Christmas Countdown

I wanted them all to be red and green, and Jackson and Megan happily obliged, but Sade's did not. She insisted on green and pink.

Day 2: Write A Letter To Santa

The toy catalogs came out.

The lists were quite long and detailed.

Day 3: Have Hot Chocolate

This is the night we went to Santa's Village, so we had some while we were there.

Day 4: Have Hot Chocolate. Um.......you may remember Day 3 was also have hot chocolate. Strange, right? Well.....I had Young Women's and left Eric in charge of the stocking for the night and he chose have hot chocolate...again! Apparently it slipped his mind that we had just had hot chocolate the night before. Even the kids told him that we had already done that one, but he didn't believe them. In his defense he told me later he thought the stocking from the night before was go to Santa's Village. So anyway, the kids had hot chocolate again!

Day 5: Open This Present

We all received new Christmas books.

Day 6: Make Paper Snowflakes To Decorate The Windows

Day7: Write A List Of Ten Things You Are Thankful For

The answers that Megan, Jackson, Eric, and I gave were quite traditional, but Sade who still thinks out of the box, is thankful for among other things: football and helmets and baseballs and gloves.

Day 8: Decorate A Gingerbread House

The Piece de Resistance!

Day 9: Write A Christ Centered Goal For The New Year

We wrote them up and then put them in these little nativity sets that Rachel P. got for all of us in Young Women's. Thanks Rachel!

Again we all had more traditional goals, but Sade once again showed us up with "Be happy, and help bunnies."

Day 10: Make A Christmas Craft

This year we made Christmas magnets.

Day 11: Watch A Christmas Movie

It was a bit difficult to find one that we hadn't already watched this season, but finally settled on Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.

Day 12: Read The Christmas Story In The Bible

Whew.....Christmas season is so busy and I have to admit that a couple of these were done very late at night after getting home from one event or another. But they were done, even if it was hours past bedtime.

Christmas Eve

FYI: The Christmas Day post is below this one.

We started of Christmas Eve by going to our friends house for dinner.



They had made these adorable place cards for everyone.

The kids could hardly wait to get home so they could open the one present they get to open on Christmas Eve! It is a highly anticipated event.

Sadie chose one from her Grandma and Grandpa McClellan.

She was thrilled with her new kids laptop.

Now Jackson, has been telling me all month I HAD to pick out the present he was going open, and I HAD to make sure it was a Beyblade 2 pack. He is obsessed. Of course I obliged:

Megan chose to open a present from Grandma Myra and Grandpa Ken.

She was very excited to get the new ICarly 2 DS game and played it the rest of the night.

We also had one more bit of excitement on Christmas Eve: Jackson lost his first tooth!

We were all so excited that we would be receiving a visit from Santa and The Tooth Fairy on the same night!

Christmas Day!

Christmas Morning!!!

A bit of bad news to start us off. We discovered, or rather Jackson discovered that the Tooth Fairy did not come. I am sure she was just very busy on Christmas Eve. It is a very hectic time for everyone! We finally determined that the Tooth Fairy must take Christmas Eve off, since it is Santa's big day. After all, I am sure she would not forget to come to our house. Right? But don't worry she made sure to come the next night.

This year the kids wanted to open up their stockings first.

Then we moved onto the main event: Tackling the presents under the tree.

Sade took the tackling fairly seriously.

I believe Sadie's favorite gift of the day was her new Princess Tea Set. We all had numerous cups throughout the day.

By far, Jackseys favorite gifts were all of the new Beyblades he received (or Beys as he calls them). They have been played with for hours and hours since Christmas. He is also quite fond of the Beyblade DS game from Grandma Myra and Grandpa Ken, and the 60 dart GIGANTIC Nerf Gun from Grandpa Marty. And I can't fail to mention the passes to Flip-N-Out that Grandpa Ed gave him. He has been begging me take him for months. All in all, Jackson is quite easy to please.

Although I seem to have no picture of it, Megs favorite gift was a new cell phone! I never imagined myself getting my 10 year old a phone, however since we have no home phone and I needed one to leave her when she is home by herself, and I needed a way to contact her after school to let her know how her and Jackson are getting home (since our car situation is precarious), she received a cell phone. But enough with the justifications! She is thrilled.

Sade, who never tires of opening gifts, helped Eric and I open ours:

Now a word of advice. If you happen to have a 2 year old who is prone to extreme acts of independence, DO NOT use ribbon on their gifts. Otherwise you will have said 2 year old insisting on using scissors to cut said ribbon BY HERSELF on every present. Unfortunately little Sade has very few scissor skills, so the process was exhausting. Amazingly she finally allowed Eric, and ONLY Eric to help her:

Independent 2 year olds also like to pick out their own clothing. This is what Sadie picked out to wear to dinner at our friends house that night:

Needless to say I didn't mind her choice. Thanks Aunt Autumn for the new skirt and headband! As you can see Sadie loves them.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!