mortierworld: December with three...

Despite having a newborn and skipping some Christmas traditions (like Christmas Town and going to the Messiah), I feel like we were able to fit quite a few Christmasy things in during December!

Both girls were very into tree decorating this year. They were also very excited about all their Christmas dresses so we let them dress up for the decorating party. :) While it was quite fun having so much gel this year, it did lead to a record number of ornaments dropped and broken during the process. ;)

Once the ornament box was discovered and Nathan’s tiny Nutcracker, our helpers quickly dropped out. This little nutcracker was a highlight of the Christmas season for Evie! We all spend quite a bit of time reenacting parts of the Nutcracker with her using this Nutcracker. Her favorite: Herself as Marie, Nana and naughty Fritz/Drosslemyer - haha.

We finished off our Christmas tree party with some fresh gingerbread! (made by Nana with my Great-Grandma’s recipe!)

We attended two abridged Nutcracker performances this year. The first was free and at the library…….. Evie definitely enjoyed it, but lets just say I was glad it was free. ;)

We’ve always done Operation Christmas Child, but this year Evelyn LOVED helping with it. She woke me up early one Saturday morning saying “Mommy! Did you know that there are some little girls that have NO mommy and NO daddy??” Nathan had been explaining the purpose of OCC to her and she was very excited to pack a box of toys for a little girl like her who didn’t have parents. She proudly carried her box to church with us one Sunday. Gracie, on the other hand, just remembered the dolls we had put in the boxes and whenever we past the drop off table at church would point and say “baby! baby!” and try to open the boxes. :) Oh my. :)

Since we were spending more time at home this past December, we decided to make a gingerbread village with the girls - they thought it was great! Thankfully the kit we got had brightly colored but rather tasteless candy so it was easier to convince them not to eat it. ;)