Christmas 2012

Seeing Christmas through the eyes of a children is wonderful.  You can almost not even begin to put into words the beauty of it all.  I found myself simply sitting and soaking in the "moments."  We continued with many of our "old" traditions but also began with some new traditions.

Emmy continued with making the Christmas outfits for the girls.  I found these skirts in April while we were at Hilton Head at my new favorite kid's store Janie and Jack I will only be shopping at the outlets thought.  The skirts were regularly priced at $46 each and I got them for $8.99.  The hat was originally for Caroline but Grace wanted one too so we went to the dress up bin for help.

We also made our yearly trek to Coney Island just in time for Christmas.  We were there to early in the evening for our picture to turn out but we made it none the less.  Grace asked if next year she could get 2 hot dogs instead of just one.  

Santa continued to leave his presents on the door step.  Grace did get to meet "The REAL Santa Claus" at Canterbury this year. When I asked Grace how she knew he was the real one she said, "You could just feel it.  He wasn't pretending."  

Santa brought exactly what she wanted!

We had our annual Christmas Eve with Emmy and Uncle Chris, Christmas morning at home, and Christmas late morning at Grandma/Grandpa Dickmeyer's house.  

Dora gymnastic doll!  

The famous Uncle David scarf.  "Momma, butterflies go with everything!"  

Some of the new traditions that we started were that Grace made gifts for her grandparents, cousins and aunts/uncles this year.  I think it really helped to show her that Christmas is not about getting presents but giving.  She made blankets for her cousins, original pieces of art for her grandparents, and baked goods for her uncles.  

Rose snuggled under her new blanket.  

One of my new personal favorite traditions was that Emmy wrapped up 25 different Christmas stories.  Some were religious, some were wintery, some were Santa, etc.  Then each night the girls took turns picking a book to unwrap.  After Rich read the Bible story I would then read the book for the night.  We will certainly keep the this tradition going.  The books are packed away and ready to be rewrapped next year.  

Last of all we took the train into Chicago with the Wilson's to see the Christmas lights.

The windows at Macy's.  Papaw used to take Momma to see these every December.  

The whole clan.

We've enjoyed 2 weeks of Christmas Break but the other day Grace said, "I think I'm ready to go back and see my friends at school now."  She is definitely a teacher's daughter.