Getting Ready

As the Advent season draws to a close, here is a look at how we have been preparing for Christmas!

Juan Pablo is really hoping for a white Christmas...it doesn't look likely, but he's convinced it can't be Christmas without snow. We had some snow a few weeks ago, and he was so excited, the first thing he asked when he looked out the window in the morning was, "Is it Christmas today?" He couldn't wait to go out and play, but we made him hold out for a while until A) it was no longer dark out, B) he had eaten breakfast, and C) mama had enough coffee in her to be prepared to deal with the wet clothes and snow tracked in the house. He could not have been happier out there.
Ana Luisa ventured out too.
They even tried some sledding. Note that mama stayed inside and took pictures from the window.
Afterward there was hot cocoa, of course. I love that our mugs are as big as Ana Luisa's face. She's really gotten into drinking a little tea or hot cocoa from time to time this fall, and it cracks me up every time. Maybe it's time to invest in some kid-sized mugs.
We've been decorating the house slowly. We really wanted to focus on Advent as a season of waiting and preparing our hearts, not just as a month-long extension to Christmas. It's hard to do when all around Christmas decorations go up and Christmas music starts playing the day after Halloween. We just had our Advent wreath out at first, and put out our Nativity and Christmas tree the third week of Advent. The Nativity is constantly re-arranged, of course.
And Ana Luisa discovered bubble wrap as we unpacked ornaments.
As is typical when the people decorating the tree are barely three feet tall, most of our ornaments ended up clustered near the bottom of the tree. I like it that way.
We've also been baking. This year I decided to just bake one batch of cookies each week and freeze them, rather than going crazy and trying to bake a bunch of different kids right before Christmas. Here are the kids making biscotti. We're classy like that.
Actually, the kids ended up loving the biscotti, and for the next couple days would ask for hot cocoa and a biscotti for their afternoon snack. See, classy.

We've also done some shopping, of course. I try to steer the kids towards gifts that the intended recipient will actually like, but it's not always easy, and thankfully the intended recipients are very gracious and bound to be amused by the kids selections, so I don't worry about it too much.
And we made some decorations. One afternoon while I was cooking, I just gave the kids a stack of paper, some markers and crayons, yarn and scissors, and told them to make some ornaments for the tree or other decorations to put up around the house.
Ana Luisa made these lovely cow ornaments, despite the fact that she reminds us at least once a day that cows scare her.
Our resident artist worked very hard on his contribution. He takes these things very seriously.
Here is the nativity scene he drew:
Finally, Ana Luisa and I went out to do a little shopping for Christmas outfits. I found a little tux in Juan Pablo's size for $20. I think it's pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen.
Or maybe this is...
Cutie pies.