Some holiday activities

It’s almost Christmas!  The time is really flying by.  We have been busy with getting ready for the holidays and the twins arrival, but we have found some time to have some holiday fun!   Sadly I have been a bit of a picture taking slacker still.  In my defense a lot of these activities are at night and it is too dark for any of my pictures to turn out.  And honestly, I am trying to enjoy every moment we have with Ben as our only child, so I am trying to really be in the moment and not get distracted by trying to take pictures.

At the beginning of the month we went to our town’s Christmas Walk.  It is a wonderful evening where they close down the main street and fill it with all sorts of vendors and Christmas fun.  We started at the American Legion for some yummy fish fry.  We checked out the church’s nativity display, saw the horse drawn carriage rides, and watched the silent parade.  (That’s where the fire trucks are decorated in Christmas lights and go slowly down main street.  It sounds a bit creepy, but it is really pretty.  Ben loved just wandering around and looking at everything.  And he was a trooper!  It can be a bit of walking to get to see everything, but he kept at it.  As he gets older he’ll be able to participate in more activities.  This year he enjoyed the playground and dancing to all the Christmas music.  His favorite part though, was the ice sculptor.  It is fun to watch a giant block of ice turn into something else.  This year the theme was Mickey Mouse.  Oh yes, you can imagine how excited Ben was.  He ran right up to the giant ice Mickey and gave it a big hug and kiss.  He just loved hugging it and touching it.  And this is a giant piece of ice!!  Fortunately for us, it wasn’t too cold a night.  It was hovering right around 40, so I wasn’t worried that his lips would freeze to the Mickey.  At least I wasn’t too worried. 😉  It was the highlight of the night for Ben

Mickey Mouse!

We have also recently gone to our library’s Christmas night.  I normally love this activity because Santa is there.  They do a great job of having activities for the kids to keep them busy.  Plus, you get a number and they only call a few numbers up at a time, so the kids aren’t stuck waiting in line forever.  We were very disappointed that Santa didn’t come to the event this year!  Ben didn’t seem to mind, and I am betting he didn’t even notice.  Honestly I’m not sure Ben would be willing to sit with Santa, so far he seems to be pretty scared of things like that.  But as a mom I wanted that picture.  We still managed to have fun with the other activities though.  Ben’s friends from his play group were all there.  We listened to a choir sing carols and got to play jingle bells along with them.  Ben liked sorting through the various craft supplies, despite not actually wanting to make any crafts.  Overall we had a lot of fun, despite missing Santa.

Listening to the singing and eating cookies

Sitting with Daddy

Daddy ‘helped’ with this craft

This past weekend the church close to our house had a live nativity this past weekend.  As it was almost 60 degrees out, we thought it was a great excuse to take an evening stroll and check it out.  It was cute, and Ben enjoyed the live cows and sheep that were there.  I don’t think the actual Christmas story has fully sunk in for him yet, but we tell him about it.  He was all about the balloons the kids could get afterwards though.  We didn’t hang out too long, but it was fun for Ben to be out a little later and to run around with some other kids.  I don’t know if we will make this a family tradition, but we did enjoy it this year.

Throughout all these activities we have been watching a ton of Christmas movies.  Pat and I adore all the ones we remember from our childhood.  The Grinch, Charlie Brown, Mickey.  We love re-watching them every year.  It just gets to be more fun as Ben starts to enjoy them!  Of course he likes the Mickey ones the best, but he is coming around to the others.  The one thing still really left on our Christmas fun list, besides Christmas itself, is getting to see Santa.  Pat and I keep going back and forth on whether or not we will.  Like I said, I think it is really more for my sake that we would do it, Ben doesn’t care either way.  He knows who Santa is, but I don’t think fully connects that to getting presents or Santa coming on Christmas Eve.  We do have one good picture of Ben with Santa from this year.  There was a blow up Santa at Christmas Walk.  Ben was really excited about it, and I told him he could go give it a hug.  This was a bad plan, as Ben basically tackled the blow up.  And, as most people would have guessed but for some reason I didn’t, the blow up was not sturdy.  Yes, Ben almost took out Santa.  Luckily it bounced back and was fine.  Mom fail on that one though.

Running to tackle Santa

Despite wiping out a blow up Santa, the holiday season has been a good one.  I am so happy we have so many great free family activities in our area.  We are very lucky.  I am looking forward to the rest of the holiday season!!

–Kim