Pre-Christmas Fun!

Since I'm sooo behind, most of the Christmas fun is going to just get rolled into one LONG post just so I can check this off my list and move on to the other countless things I need to do!  (And as I'm typing this, I just heard Luke on the monitor up from his nap, so I guess I'll be back later!!)  

This year we had to go with a real tree because we needed a "First Christmas Stump" for Luke (our stump family is in a few pictures down)  Otherwise, I'm perfectly fine with our nice fake tree (especially because the needles drive me nuts with kiddos!)  I laughed when I saw my friend Lisa's post about being Christmas tree snobs because she'd never survive a Christmas in Germany.  The trees here are typically short and fat and gappy with long stems.  I sent Leevi and Hailey out alone to pick our tree (at the exciting commissary of all places!) and for some reason was under the impression that they would ship in traditional American trees, so when Leevi and Hailey came home with this pitiful thing I was the biggest Scrooge/Grinch all mixed into one.  Of course I didn't let Hailey know (she picked this winner specifically because it was the tallest!) but I huffed and puffed around Leevi not believing that he couldn't talk Hailey into a nicer one.  It eventually grew on me and I thank Hailey for humbling me and reminding me the true meaning of Christmas!  Our little tree was perfect! 

Why do I torture them (and myself!) every year!?!  :)

The stockings worked well this year tucked into the lid of the trunk, but Hailey objected to the way her "H" looked and decided to make her own "H" (in her defense the middle line in her H is red and it blends in to the red on the stocking)  And Luke's "L" didn't make it in time (STILL ISN'T HERE), so he took Leevi's "L" and Leevi used his Cowboys stocking.  The bottom two pictures are the kids first Christmas stockings (the girls' are Hawaiian and Luke's is German) and on the right is our stump family.

We brought out the Christmas decorations during Thanksgiving weekend, but we held off on the tree for a few weeks because of Luke! I wasn't worried so much about him messing with the ornaments but more about him using the tree to pull himself up to stand (AND THEN THE TREE FALLING OVER!) We attempted different barricades and then Leevi just happened to find a baby gate on clearance at the PX for only $27 that could wrap around the tree...I had looked online and couldn't find one for less than $60!  

Luke had the honor of putting on the star this year which didn't exactly go over so well (oh, the memories!!)  :)  On the right is my Christmas present to myself...a demijohn used to make wine. And the bottom two is our card garland (which I still have hanging because cards are still trickling in) and our Santa pics.

Our Santa visit went off without a hitch this year!  He had extremely limited hours, so we went directly from church one morning.  Luke was fine, so maybe he'll escape the Santa scare (or maybe he'll get him next year when he's about 1 1/2!) 

A tradition we do every year is to make Christmas Trash (aka Puppy Chow?) and deliver it to our neighbors along with our Christmas card.  I had lots of help this year!  

 

We made reindeer food for Hailey's class party and baked Christmas cookies for Santa with my friend Heather.  

The girls dressed up as snowmen one day....

We made sure to take a family picture with Snowy before he returned to the North Pole!  Leila was dying to join us on the couch (which I can successfully say we had no problems training her to stay off the new set!) so we let her jump up for the silly picture!  Poor Luke was distracted by his hat and we used the timer for the photo so no one was there to make him smile!  :) 

Random goofy-ness when I had the camera out! 

Kai wanted to take a picture in the hat that she was tucked in for her FIRST Christmas!  This would have been cute to do every year! 

We also made gingerbread houses which were surprisingly easy to put together this year.  It was the same German set I had used last year, but I don't remember them staying put so well. 

And lastly this was a new tradition we added this year and I LOVE it!  The girls went through all of their toys and created a large donation pile...we actually do that part every year but this year I put an ad on Bookoo (like craigslist) and on two pages of FB spouse groups that I'm a part of over here and said that all of the toys were free and anyone could come take as much as they needed for their children (we left the tables set up outside, so whoever could come day or night without needing to disturb us).  Leevi was skeptical that all of them would be gone in one swoop to the first person who came (which essentially didn't matter because I was going to take them all to donate to the thrift store anyway) and he probably had a valid point and maybe this won't work so well back in the States with a larger "clientele", BUT it worked here and it was so fun to see the girls' excitement when they'd check the table to see what had been taken.   We never saw one person (we were either asleep or away from the house) but at least 8 different times we noticed something else gone.  After about 5 days when the pickins got slim, I boxed up what was left and took it to the thrift store.  This is definitely a tradition we will continue!  I even got a few emails from people who had stopped by thanking us! 

And no holidays are complete without a dance party!!!!!!