Christmas Eve-2011

After we left Mamaw and Papaw's house Christmas Eve night, we hurried home so we could bake cookies for Santa. I know Santa is a fan of chocolate chip cookies, but it's so much more fun to use cookie cutters and make sugar cookies. Santa didn't seem to mind because he gobbled them all up!

Probably Eli's favorite part was puting the sugar on the sugar cookies. He may have gone a little overboard, but they sure were pretty!

While the cookies were baking, we read our last two books from under the Christmas tree. This is an idea I've heard about for a couple of years, but Pinterest reminded me of it this year. I took 25 Christmas books that I already had and wrapped them up and put them under the Christmas tree. Every night Eli got to choose a book and we read that book before he went to bed. It was one way we counted down to Christmas. This is a tradition I will definitely continue doing every year. Not only does it foster a love a reading (something near and dear to my heart), but it was so sweet getting to share these Christmas memories with our little man. We read a variety of Christmas books, some had been given to him over the past few years as gifts, and then I bought some new ones to add to our collection. My favorite nights, I must say, were the nights he chose books that talked about the birth of Jesus. It was so wonderful to be able to share with him the real reason that we celebrate Christmas. 

All the books we read this year!

After our cookies were finished baking, we poured Santa some milk and set out three cookies for him on his cookie plate.

Eli wrote him a note...

Then I let him enjoy one cookie before bed :)

His favorite part was the "spwinkles" :)

After he finished his cookie, it was time to go sprinkle our reindeer food on the ground outside. We wanted to make sure Santa's reindeer knew where to land, especially since this was the first time they were going to be at our new house. He and Daddy had lots of fun sprinkling the reindeer food outside. Then it was time to go to sleep so Santa Claus could come!

We all settled down for bed and went right to sleep because we knew Santa wouldn't come until we were all asleep. I left my camera out charging for the next day and when I woke up the next morning, I had a surprise! Elfis must have figured out the self-timer on my new camera, because he left us one last picture before heading back to the North Pole. We can't wait to see him again next year :)