Preparations & Festivations

...no, it's not, but it should be a word...

We spent the last week of November and the first week of December in 

decoration and preliminary celebration mode.  Here's what we did:

First round of decorating -
I love how excited the kids get when they rediscover their Christmas books.

We wanted to avoid the loooooong lines we had at Riverwoods last year,
so we went early.  Unfortunately, the line was still pretty long, so we only went
on the horse-drawn carriage ride, and saved Santa for our next visit.

I think the sleigh bells convinced Jack that reindeer were actually pulling the carriage,
so he kept talking about reindeer instead of horses, even after we said hello to the horses... 

We had big plans for cutting down a tree, either in the wild or at a tree farm.
We didn't get a permit early enough to cut down a wild tree, and the tree farms were
very inconvenient and very expensive.  So we went to a fresh-cut tree place, checked
out the prices, and promptly left to go to the one across the street.  There, the prices were better,
AND a lady asked us if we'd like to purchase a Groupon from her, which would end up
saving us $10. This one ALSO had a big Mater truck and lollipops.  Sounds good.

 Each child had a strong opinion on which tree we should buy.

But we finally agreed on one.

Cat and Ben lit the tree together, then we filled it up with our assortment of kid-made,
Mommy-made, hand-painted, store-bought, gifted, broken, cheap, and precious ornaments.

Then I took the kids to Riverwoods a second time, determined to see Santa.
We increased our chances of waiting in line for less than an hour by going on a week night,
and were happy to see a very short line.  We even took a few minutes to enjoy the outdoor
mall.  The lights are awesome, there were no crowds, and the weather wasn't too cold.  Perfect.  

Jack even took some time to get ideas for my Christmas present.
Ahh, a boy after my own heart!  :-)

It was actually fun for everyone to see the Big Guy this year.  I think this is the first time
I haven't had a kid crying in a Santa picture.  We had last year's Santa picture on our family calendar
for December, and Eliza was really upset last year (see below), so she kept saying that she was going to
cry when she saw Santa.  But she didn't!  She even gave him a hug!  Jack told Santa that he wanted a
"big Thomas and Annie and Clarabel" and Santa had a full conversation with him about the various engines
on Thomas the Tank Engine.  It was precious.

Photo from 2011.
(See full post here.)