Christmas 2012

Christmastime was a blast, just like I thought it would be. Charlotte's Santa-anxiety aside, the entire season was full of fun and family time, and Christmas day was no different. Due to the Santa-anxiety, we had to be a bit creative this year: Charlotte would NOT agree to Santa coming to her house, so we worked out a solution in which Santa would meet Daddy at Daddy's office and give Daddy her presents to bring home. It worked out quite well, except for the fact that pesky Santa did not deliver the gifts to Daddy's office pre-assembled!

Daddy hard at work assembling Charlotte's play kitchen.

Anyways, Charlotte and Jensen were up bright and early on Christmas morning, eager to see their Christmas loot.

Jensen's big gift--a train table and some Thomas trains!

Charlotte's big gift--a play kitchen!

Charlotte randomly told my brother a few days before Christmas that she wanted Santa to bring her "bean bags"--soooo Santa got busy and found some. Charlotte hasn't played with them once so Santa may not take those last-minute requests so seriously next year.

We really just did stockings and one big gift from Santa this year. I just am not on board with kids getting piles and piles of loot from Santa, and our kids are so spoiled by both sets of grandparents, so we will be keeping our Santa lists small even as C&J get older. After opening their gifts at our house, we went to Grandma and Grandpa's to exchange gifts.

There were stockings to open...

Mr. Bear helped.

...and there was another big gift for Daddy and Grandpa to assemble.

I love how little J looks in his footie PJs.

Later that afternoon, our extended family from my dad's side came over for dinner. Jensen was a bit shy with all the commotion, but Charlotte enjoyed the action and was quite the entertainer, singing songs and even planting herself in the middle of the group before the prayer and singing her pre-lunch prayer that they do at school.

The fam. Note Bear trying to smother my mom. 

Love my little Bug.

It was a very Merry Christmas and I think I'll always remember this one as the first Christmas that Charlotte and Jensen were really "into" everything. As far as gifts go, it was kind of hit-and-miss: They both love all the Thomas the train stuff and Charlotte got a few Caillou books that we still read every single night. However, the play kitchen has hardly been touched, which is so strange because she loves the one at Tita and Papaw's house and her teachers tell me she plays with the one at school all the time. Also, I don't think C&J realize that Christmas won't come again for another year...when they see something they want, they are already saying that they are going to ask for it for Christmas. If I had to guess, I'd guess that next Christmas will hold even more fun and even more Thomas the Train!