I really love Christmas, so I find it easier to say ‘yes’ to spontaneous fun in December. Treats every day? Sure! Christmas music on all the time? YES! Christmas movies on repeat? YES! YES! YES!
Case in point: hot cocoa at Taste! I’m usually too busy and too cheap to take us out for stuff like this, but not in December! I love the giant Elf wall sticker behind her 🙂
Our church’s Christmas program was earlier this month and Maelle was a donkey. (Last year she was a sheep, I think.) They sang a lot of the same songs, and I enjoyed hearing their sweet voices singing familiar words. So cute!
Other than a couple blizzards, our winter so far has been incredibly mild. Maelle and I got out on our bikes a few times this month! I’m so glad we (really, I) pulled the trigger and bought her bike at the end of September, since the weather has been unseasonably warm. She’s now a proficient pedaler and we can hit the ground spinning (ha!) next Spring instead of having to ‘learn’ to ride a bike then.
We celebrated our 18th (!!!) anniversary with dinner at our favorite place, Rick’s. We were thrilled to get the fireplace room and always enjoy the food and festive decorations.
Maelle went bowling for the first time! She attended our little neighbor’s birthday party at a local bowling alley and loved it. It was fun to see her interact with kids her own age, especially since she didn’t know many of them before the party.
Maelle built a Christmas delivery truck with Daddy at Lowe’s!
Of course, Christmas is the season for decorating cookies! Despite how busy I felt, I didn’t want to let my cookie-making tradition fall by the wayside. So, I made a half-batch and was glad I did–we had plenty! Maelle and I made a few ‘kid-friendly’ cookies as well, including the Nutter Butter Santa faces and those Rolo/pretzel/M&M reindeer. Future Holly: DO NOT make the reindeer faces again! The pretzels DO NOT break well and they are not worth the frustration.
Maelle decorated a few of her own cookies, too!
Maelle really loves drawing and coloring, and now that she’s learning her letters, she likes to copy something we’ve written onto paper. She comes up with sentiments such as “I hope you feel better soon, to Daddy from Maelle” and requests we write them down for her to copy.
Another tradition I wanted to be sure we did was seeing the Christmas lights in the Stony Brook neighborhood up in Clarence. We’ve done it for the last couple years, walking in the snow, but this year with Andrew’s ACL injury we chose to drive slowly through the neighborhood. (Unfortunately, the pic Andrew snapped didn’t capture any lights, but I thought it was a sweet one of Maelle and me.) Another note for future Holly: DO NOT go to the John and Mary’s near the neighborhood–it was terrible. Bring hot chocolate and cookies instead 🙂
This year, the Carolcade was on December 23rd, a full week after it usually is (mid-December; the week of our anniversary), which felt very festive. We brought our hot toddies, met up with friends and sang Christmas carols with only two sleeps to go until Christmas!
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