Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Oh Santa, how we prepared for you...

When I was growing up, I always wrote letters to Santa on Christmas Eve.  My brother and I always left him cookies and milk.  When I woke up on Christmas morning, nothing thrilled me more than seeing bites taken out of my cookies and reading the notes that the big guy left for me.  It didn't occur to me until I was about 8 that Santa's handwriting looked an awful lot like my dad's.

Last year, we started inviting friends and family over to our house in the days leading up to Christmas, to write letters to Santa and decorate sugar cookies.  We have cider and hot chocolate.  We listen to Christmas carols.  We laugh and have a good time.

This year, we continued the tradition.  We made new friends this year and expanded our guest list. We made more cookies.  We got cooler sparkles.  We finally started using gel food coloring and actually had red icing instead of dark pink icing.  We drank cider and hot chocolate.  We had a snowball fight.  We laughed. The house felt warm and festive... helped in part to 60 degree weather outside... the spirit of a Southern Christmas was everywhere!

We made new friends (who happen to think sneezing, coughing, and the sound of dropping pots and pans are the most hilarious thing on the planet - just like Will!)



We ensured that Santa would have a sugar rush.



We spanned 3 generations of Santa-loving friends in 2 families!



We practiced our handwriting and gave the big guy a few words of encouragement to keep us on the Nice List.



We slowed down for just a few seconds to decorate with old friends.



We played carefully with the Polar Express.



We smiled.



We marveled at the maturity, love, patience, kindness, empathy and fun that older siblings give to their world.



We had a two story tall snowball fight. Ladders were required for snowball retrieval.



We laughed. Oh, how we laughed. Big belly laughs. Christmas-is-here-and-I-love-you-so-much laughs.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for including us in your beautiful day. And thank you for including us in your blog!