The Christmas Season Begins

The day after Thanksgiving we pulled all our Christmas decorations out of storage and started decking the halls. I couldn't wait to decorate our house for Christmas. Some may say I go a little overboard, but I LOVE it! It makes me so happy to walk in my house and see all my Christmas decorations in each room. We also wanted our house to be ready because we knew that on December 1st Elfis would be arriving from the North Pole. 

It took all weekend long but we trimmed every tree, decked every hall, strung up all the lights (inside and outside) and got the house ready for Christmas. When December 1st rolled around, we were ready! That morning Eli woke up extra early and found a special package for him under the Christmas tree. Eflis had arrived from the North Pole! Eli was so excited! He looks forward to Elfis' arrival every year.

Elfis always brings his book that tells all about the special elves from the North Pole assigned to houses each year, and he'll usually bring Eli a small "happy". This year he brought Eli a gigantic pencil, two decks of Christmas playing cards, a note to Eli, and some candy. 

We always have a special breakfast of frosted donuts and hot chocolate on the day Elfis arrives from the North Pole so that's exactly what we did.  Eli enjoyed his donuts and hot chocolate on the floor beside Elfis before getting dressed for school that day. 

I've seen pictures and read stories about some of these elves from the North Pole that do all sorts of crazy shenanigans when they visit the houses they're assigned to and I'm happy to report that Elfis is not like that at all. He usually likes to hide in high places around our living room and occasionally he'll bring small activities for us to do as a family, but that's mostly all the excitement we get from Elfis. Every now and then we'll find him in the middle of something but those moments are rare!

One morning we found him playing cards with Chippy and Frosty. 

Another morning he decided to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate and a few marshmallows.

Every year there are a few Christmas traditions we do as a family. One of those is packing a box for a soldier overseas.

Of course, one of Eli's favorite parts of the Christmas season is getting to wear his elf hat while he does his homework each night. My cute little elf makes the Christmas season so much fun! The Christmas season was off to a great start!!

It's Beginning to Look and Feel Like Christmas...

We've been SUPER busy this year getting ready for the Christmas season. I don't remember being this busy last year, but that's probably because I was home with my month old baby boy :) Well, I was busy then, but just with the new parent, new baby stuff. Awww, those were the good days! Just kidding! Life is pretty fun these days. School has been CRAZY! I love it though even if I'm up to my eyeballs in handmade Christmas ornaments, losing things like crazy in my classroom, jumping through hoops trying to coax my 20 first graders into singing their Christmas song, "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" loudly enough that people will be able to hear it, grading stacks and stacks of test papers, and trying my best to stay sane when the kids are already in holiday mode! It's been crazy, but I only have to get through one more week, before my second favorite break in my school year (summer being the first!)...Christmas Break! Next Friday night, I will be celebrating because I'll be out of school for 2 WHOLE WEEKS! Yippeee!

Eli is also making life so much fun these days. It's so wonderful to be able to experience things again through his eyes. We managed to put Christmas decorations up around the house (outside and inside) and he is enamored with the lights. He points to them and tries to say the word "lights", but it mostly sounds like "iigh!" He loves the Christmas tree and every time he notices it, he says "Baawwl!" That's "ball" for all you that don't speak toddler :) He's managed to only touch and throw a few of my ornaments, but luckily they were the non-breakable ones, so no harm done. Oddly enough, he's actually left the tree alone. He's so busy running all over the house that he acts like he doesn't even notice it anymore. I haven't had to rearrange anything so far and i hope it stays that way!

Here are just a few of the ways we've been getting ready for the Christmas season.

1. We decorated the outside of our house with traditional icicle lights. Sorry, folks, those LED lights we spent lots of money on last year just don't give me those warm fuzzies I want when I come home at night. I want to be in the Christmas spirit and those LED lights were not about that at all! Here is Eli noticing the lights with Mamaw Chandler for the first time :)


2. Elfis has entered the building, er, tree. We started our "Elf on the Shelf" with Eli this year and it's so much fun! He knows Elfis by name and every morning we get up and look for Elfis to see where he is after going to the North Pole to tell Santa how good Eli has been. I have to get a picture because it's so precious the way he looks for Elfis. He holds his hands out to the side with his palms turned up and he walks around the house searching for Elfis. Elfis has been hiding in some easy spots this year to help Eli get the hang of finding him, but he's so smart! He remembers all the places where Elfis has been and goes to look at all of them before he tries to find the new spot. It's so much fun!

Meet Elfis

Reading the book to Eli to explain the rules :)

3. Eli helped me decorate our tree. He was so interested in the lights and he would sneak up behind me as I was wrapping the tree and grab the strand of lights and take off across the floor as fast as he could! It took FOREVER to decorate the tree and the rest of the house, but I finally finished!

4. Eli even decided the tree needed a "personal" touch from him, so he added something that is very special to him...his pacifier! How sweet is that? I can't wait to see how the rest of this wonderful season goes!

Eli's ornament on the tree :)