Santa and Our Tree

I absolutely love Christmas, and I have to say I love it even more now that we have children! And especially now that Noelle is a bit older and understands things a little more, it's fun getting her involved and excited about the holiday.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving we went out to get our tree (I love to have it up for as long as possible before Christmas, but am usually more than ready to take it down by January 1st!) Our plan had been to meet up with some friends and their baby girl to go to a tree farm and cut down trees. Unfortunately, the day before had been pretty wet, and it was still overcast and little drizzly, so we decided to just head up to Home Depot and pick one out from the lot. Cheaper and less time in the cold! Noelle was so excited to help us get it set up and put on the decorations. And Jonah loved seeing it all put together when I brought him down from his nap.

We made a little red and green paper chain to count down until Christmas, and as I was making it, we added an activity on the chains to do each day. The first day was working on a puzzle while watching a Christmas movie, the second was writing a letter to Santa, the third was learning about Saint Nick. I had a meeting the one night, but Luke found the Veggie Tales version of the Saint Nicholas story and told me that Jonah and Noelle both enjoyed it!

Noelle told me what she wanted written in her letter to Santa- a replacement for the Mickey Mouse pop up/music book that had been ripped, and an umbrella of her very own. So fun hearing what is on her little mind about what she wants! (And thankfully both are on Amazon!) Of course when I took the kids to see Santa the day before Thanksgiving, neither wanted anything to do with him, and the picture turned out too hilarious to not buy!

We also are trying to spend time focusing on the true meaning of Christmas, and have been reading exerts from the Storybook Bible and from a few Christmas books we have with the nativity story. I really don't know how much Noelle understands at this point, if she's able to differentiate between things that are just stories versus the truth that Jesus is God and came as a baby. But I'm praying that at least a seed has been planted, and that God will pursue her little heart and draw her to Him!