First Christmas

Evan was mesmerized by the Christmas tree and I was completely mesmerized watching him. It was quiet and peaceful in the house, with everyone else in bed. Evan just looked up at the tree for several minutes taking it all in. The sparkles, colors and lights. Seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child is quite special indeed.



I am so looking forward to the next several weeks. Much of the planning is behind me. The gifts will mostly be experience oriented as I can't think of one thing the kids need or even want. I know they want something under the tree, a surprise, but I asked them to tell me what things we've done in the past that they most love about Christmas. Some of the things they said were decorating a tree outside full of goodies for the birds, squirrels, rabbits, etc like we've done the past couple of years (The Night Tree). They look forward to getting their ornaments and begged me to do the advent calendar with different ideas/activities each day. They just love the idea that there is something special (even if very simple) planned for each day leading up to Christmas. Decorating cookies, seeing the Botanical Garden lit up, looking at lights, making ornaments, and delivering homemade goodies to neighbors are some of their favorite activities. I had planned on each of those, but I have a few new ideas up my sleeve this year. Let the magic begin!