Getting into the Christmas Spirits, er... Spirit

Christmas time has always been my favorite time of the year.  I look forward to the day after Thanksgiving when Sunny starts playing Christmas music non-stop and it is on without fail in my car for the entire season.  I love Christmas shopping.  I love looking at the decor.  I love the red cups and their accompanying flavors at Starbucks.  I love all the time spent with family.  I love the seasonal treats.  I love it all.  There is just something very magical about the entire month of December.  I have always, and will always, look back fondly on the memories of things we did to get into the Christmas spirit when I was growing up and I hope to instill these same types of memories with our little ones.

This year, admittedly, was a difficult one since Brynn was so new and thus Ryan & I were so busy and short on sleep.  I know that Emery is starting to really understand things though so I felt very strongly that while I couldn't do all the things I wanted to do (read: Zoolights), I still wanted to do as much as I could.  I know she won't remember these things, but Ryan and I will always remember the wonder in her eyes and excitement in her voice.

If I had all the time in the world, I would split the few activities we did or participated in into their own individual posts filled with pictures.  However, the realist in me recognizes that because I generally have a newborn baby in the crook of my arm I don't have archives of perfect pictures nor the amount of time to sit down and write that many posts.  So instead, I'm squishing them all into this post.  I apologize in advance for the length of this bad boy - maybe you can take some breaks.  Heaven knows if you're in accounting or finance you could use one right about now.

First up - Emery's class Christmas party.  As I mentioned in my July 4th post, Ryan and I haven't historically been good at attending things put on by the school mainly because Emery hadn't been at an age where we felt like she interacted a ton with the other kids  nor understood.  This year we were both off work on the day of her class Christmas party, Friday December 19th, so we loaded up Miss Brynn and headed to school.  Similar to the July 4th party, we were the only parents there for her class.  We apparently have exceptional taste when it comes to the events we choose to attend.  That or we scare people.  It could be either.

Em and her class decorated sugar cookies to look like reindeer.  With 1 to 2 year olds this really equated to watching them lick icing and trying to eat the cookie at each individual step of the process.  I actually think that made it more fun.  Who wants to watch kids do things perfectly?

How Ryan manages to constantly find himself in situations that may land him on a watch list is beyond me.  The only Dad sitting at a table with 5 small children?  Sure, sign me up.

Em was so excited to have her Da-ee there.

Sure- you put that wherever dude.  I'm just going to sample this icing.  You know- just to make sure it's safe for the others.

Lady- you realize you are standing between me and slurping this icing, don't you?  Don't expect a smile for that.

One of my personal favorite memories growing up was always decorating cookies.  My Mom would make mounds and mounds of them and Matt, Julie and I would set up shop at the table and decorate them... well that and make fun of Julie for her lack of skill in doing so... but mainly the first thing.  I am not a baker as anyone who reads this blog knows... or if you don't, Ryan will tell you.  I really felt like this was a tradition I wanted to start with Emery though.  The kid loooooves herself some ginger snaps, which she calls "crackas," so I determined that gingerbread cookies would be a perfect first start.

I set out on a mission to find gingerbread cookies and decor.  After two stores were completely out and a few increasingly urgent texts from the Daddy at home I called off the search very bummed about my failure.  THEN I realized that a week prior I had purchased all the ingredients to make Ryan a cake.  Anyone who has set foot in our kitchen has likely heard Ryan spin his sad tale about how I insisted we put a cake display on our registry but in the 4 years since we've received it, I've never made him a cake.  I remind him regularly that maybe if I wasn't always either pregged up or with  brand new very screamy baby for his birthday, he'd get one, but I digress.  So I decided that I'd kill 2 birds with one stone and make a Christmas cake.  Not so traditional, but when there's funfetti, who's going to argue?  So that's precisely what we did.

Mama, what are these things?  I've never seen anything like them in this kitchen.

Can I use this yet?  I'm really tired of waiting.

The product pre-Emery's sprinkles.

Did you see how awesome I was with those sprinkles?  Gah, I'm like a professional.

Next up in the Christmas spirit roulette wheel?  Seeing Santa.  I decided that on Monday December 22nd we were going to try to tackle a Santa picture.  If you're laughing at the image of me talking Ryan into this, you know him well.  Okay, so in my naive mind I thought- hmmm, the Monday before Christmas.  Surely people will be at work or wrapping presents or whatever.  I was wrong.  We arrived at 9:45 (Santa opened at 10) and the line was already halfway up the center aisle of Bass Pro.  My stomach dropped.  I was sure Ryan was going to call the entire operation.  However, he did not.  To his credit he handled the entire thing like a pro.  

About one hour and 15 minutes, 50 trips around the store with a toddler, 25 viewings of the fish tank and 10 times looking at the catfish and saying "meow," it was finally our turn with the jolly fellow himself.  We left the proud owners of the winner below.  Was it a great picture?  Nooooo.  Would I do it again?  Yes!  Isn't family time really all about the stories anyway?

Emery actually handled this 100x better than I thought she would.  If this picture were taken about a millisecond later, she'd have totally lost it.

Last, but not least, we had Christmas Eve.  This year we spent Christmas Eve at home with our own little family.  So we tried to implement a few fun little things to make it feel like a special day for the girls.  We had donuts for breakfast....

I specifically requested this red, white and green sprinkled one at the donut place for her highness.  I am very cheesy indeed.

It was well received, thankfully.

... We enjoyed some family time.  Which mainly looks a lot like this these days.  No room in the Inn nor our laps.

"Up Da-ee, up!"

My absolute favorite thing to do around Christmas is probably to look at Christmas lights.  Emery's car seat is still rear facing and Brynn hates the car.  So clearly doing it the old-fashioned way was out of the question.  We decided we would try to take them on a walk in the neighborhood to look instead.  As it turns out, it was really cold and the temperature was dropping on Christmas Eve.  So we decided to leave a little before sunset in hopes that people would turn their lights on early.

I wouldn't say that this attempt at Christmas-y tradition was a success as you'll see below.

All bundled up and no lights.  Except from the sun.  #parentalfail

About halfway through Emery was completely over being bundled up.  Ryan decided wearing the blanket the entire way home was the best alternative.  The Martins: bringing down property values since 2010.

Ryan wanted to have the girls make cookies for Santa.  Obviously after my failed attempt the weekend before I was totally on board.  So post-walk we decided to make some cookies.  There may have been a run on the gingerbread market in Katy but there were pleeeeenty of sugar cookies.

Brynn wasn't so into making cookies.

Emery's managerial skills once again hard at work.

First cookie.  You can tell because the sprinkling methodology became increasingly more aggressive.

Sticking your entire hand into the yogurt container is entirely acceptable.  Getting the smallest dab of icing on your arm however is extremely offensive.

More is always better, right?

Finished products.  I have no doubt Santa was highly impressed not only with Emery's sprinkling but with Daddy's cookie shaping skills.

To end the day we planned to try to find a Christmas movie on TV to snuggle up and watch for a bit with Emery.  After her bath, she ran out into the living room half dressed and kept saying "mah-kee, mah-kee" (monkey).  We thought she was just talking about the huge stuffed monkey that my dear friend Chelsea gave her.  We followed her in and found that the TV was on a station that kept just flipping through various animals.  Emery was hooked.  She refused to let us change the channel.  So that was how we ended Christmas Eve.  Looking at and identifying various animals with our crazy little monkeys.  Pretty appropriate if you ask me!

Seriously.  This is what we watched for about 30 minutes.  I think it might be an ad to order this channel.

Em's never been into the TV but it showing more interest lately.  However her understanding of it is like nil.  She thinks we can control what's on it.  Every time an animal went off screen she would keep saying and signing "more, MORE!" like we could bring it back.  It's moments like this I hope I always remember.  So precious.