Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas.

We had a wonderful time leading up to Christmas. While not as jam-packed with activities as fall usually is for us, we managed to fit in some festivities:

Christmas Lights at Finwood Estate,

Visits to Santa,

A ride on the Polar Express

Adventures in Gingerbread House Making

And making Christmas cookies with Mommy, Aunt Cheryl and cousin, Heather.

In addition, we attended a children's program at Severance Hall, trimmed the Christmas Tree with circling choo-choo and all, and made plenty of Christmas crafts.

Christmas day was simple and quiet (well, as quiet as it can be with 3 year-old and nearly 2 year-old boys can be). Calem loved the idea of Santa and took the cookies and milk ceremony on Christmas Eve quite seriously. It was fun to watch him wrap his head around the whole concept of Santa, and could be heard quite often after the holidays saying, "but I don't know how Santa could fit all those presents down the chimney."

More importantly, Calem grasped the idea that Christmas is also Jesus' birthday. He asked me once if we would have birthday cake. I know a lot of people do make a cake to have on Christmas, but I opted out this year. We went to the family service at church on Christmas Eve, where kids under the age of 8 EASILY outnumbered the adults 2 to 1, and Calem still remembers that the message from the pastor was that we celebrate Christmas because we celebrate Jesus Christ and Jesus is the light of the world. Everyone at the service was given little glow-sticks, and when they turned out the lights and everyone made their glow sticks glow, it really made an impression on the kids. Calem is a bit of a pack-rat and so we still have the glow sticks. When he sees them he says, "Jesus is the light of the world."

Of course, presents were the highlight and everything they received continues to be enjoyed on a daily basis. It's nice to have some new toys in the mix, and since we play with the train set at least 4-5 hours a day, it's nice that we now have a deluxe train depot, complete with working microphone so they can yell, "AAAALLL A-BOARD!!!" again and again (and again), and that we can build train tracks all the way from the playroom to the kitchen, around the island and back.

This is only a small version of the track configurations we now make, but you get the idea. The possibilities are endless and they have so much fun building, knocking down, crashing trains, rebuilding and going on tiny railway adventures.

We had a wonderful Christmas.