Christmas Recap part 3

Ok- I'm going to finish up this Christmas recap before 2010- promise. This will be the final post(maybe) and I'm leaving out a lot of stuff but saving you from overload! You're Welcome!

First, 2 of my favorite pictures... for different reasons. The one below because I can see the excitement in my children's faces as they open their gifts from each other... It was really sweet!

And this one, well, because of the look on her face as well. Not exactly one of excitement... more of "what the heck is this thing?" and, "Why doesn't someone fix my bow instead of snapping a picture! It's caddy wompass on my head!!" Love it!! We have several taken after when she is smiling but this one truly captured the moment! Ha!!
As you may have noticed, Santa visits our house. I realize there are some people out there that do not partake in the Santa side of Christmas. We, however, do. Although, we also work very hard to emphasize CHRIST is the reason for Christmas. the children understand we celebrate because it is Baby Jesus' birthday and we plan several activities emphasizing that. This year we marked advent with an advent wreath and we used our advent calendar that depicts the manger scene. We read books about the first Christmas and sang songs about the birth of our Savior. We also attended Bethlehem Marketplace (AMAZING) and it is probably their favorite activity to do all season. This year we even knew the Holy Family!

On Christmas day we also celebrate with our very own birthday cake for Jesus. we sing happy birthday and blow out a candle. It's very sweet and the children get very excited!

This is our cake from this year...
Yet, Santa does still come. And he probably lavishes us with too much stuff.

This is our living room before Christmas morning...
and this is after... AND we had already cleaned up some by this point.

Well, we had a great month, and a FANTASTIC Christmas! We had so much fun celebrating the birth of Christ I could go on and on with these recaps. But, a New Year is just around the bend and I have lots to do to prepare for that so I will be moving on with these posts. Wherever you are, I hope you had the Merriest of Christmases as well!!