Soaking Up the Season - Christmas Traditions

We have had such a great time this past month celebrating Christmastime! I love our traditions we have in place and making new ones.

Here's a look at what we've been up to this past month



We had our 3rd annual Christmas Tree Chop Down - I love this tradition so much and hope my kids will always remember how much fun it was (even if they complain half the time right now, ha)

We trimmed the tree with the help of these 3 cute little elves!






Our elf, Twinkles, showed up! He isn't super creative, but the kids LOVE him so that's all that matters :)







We made our annual gingerbread house and I am the only one who gets just a tad frustrated with the house building process?! It never stays together, LOL.  I tried so hard then let it sit for 20 minutes before we decorated and it was still collapsing. We just made it work and then when we were all done and I went to put it on a shelf, it all crumbled.  I almost cried.  Thankfully, hubby came to the rescue and put it back together for us and I can say it has stayed that way for weeks now. (sidenote - after I wrote this I saw my SIL who told me about Costco's gingerbread houses that come already put together! Totally getting that next year)










We went and saw the zoo lights - this is something we did 4 years ago and wanted to do again.  It was fun but the drive to get there was NOT! It took what is a 25 minute drive, over 2 hours to get there!! Everyone goes to the zoo lights and we really didn't realize the traffic would be that bad.  We learned our lesson so if we go again, we need to leave at 2pm, LOL

Of course the kids have enjoyed eating a chocolate out of their advent calendar every morning this month.  It's definitely the highlight of their day.





We had breakfast with Santa at Brayden's school - this would be a new tradition if we continue to go. Honestly though, the food was yuck and Santa was just OK, but the kids had alot of fun so it's probably something we'll do again and support the school.

We drove around in our jammies, drinking hot cocoa and looked at Christmas lights.  This year we found an awesome neighborhood that we will for sure go back to year after year.  These houses were HUGE and put on insane displays! I'm sad I didn't get a picture of the best house, but still got some. Then we headed back to our neighborhood and saw some pretty decked out houses too.

hilarious selfie including our pup and a garbage bag full of clothes in the way back, LOL

The kids wrote their letters to Santa - it was so cute to see Brayden write his own letter this year.









We made cookies with my nieces. This was so fun! Hopefully it becomes a tradition.

And while we were making cookies, our husbands were making pierogis! YUM! Hoping this becomes a tradition too!!

And of course we have been doing SO much crafting! 

This month seemed to have flown by, but when I look back at everything we did it kind of doesn't. Either way, we have made the most of this holiday season and there's still a few days before the BIG day!

Brayden is on school break and his one request is to go to the mall and see Santa (even though we've seen Santa when we got our tree and at his school) - he knows the Santa at the mall is the real one and those others were just his helpers.  So of course I said yes, we'll do that tomorrow and you can just call the nut house now to admit me because going to our mall 3 days before Christmas is just INSANE!