Christmas in PA

 

Part 2 of Christmas week was spent in Pennsylvania with Mimi & Grandpa.  We arrived on Christmas Eve and attended a 5 p.m. family-friendly church service.  The weather forecasters predicted a white Christmas, and the first snowflakes fell as we were getting dressed for church.  Luke looked at the window and asked, "What are those, Mommy?"  He was 2 when he last saw snow, and only remembered the white stuff on the ground, not falling from the sky!  This was the first snowfall for Leah to be old enough to enjoy, too, as she was just 3 days old the last time we had a winter storm in SC.  We posed for pictures dressed in our Christmas best, and by the time church was over, there was a blanket of snow on the ground, and it was a perfect, pristine, snowy evening.   

 

We sprinkled reindeer food on the ground to help Santa's sleigh find the way, ate a delcious Christmas Eve dinner, and changed into cozy pjs before preparing a cookie plate for Santa:

 

 

 

True to tradition, we read Twas the Night Before Christmas before nestling the children snug in their beds (where visions of sugarplums surely danced in their heads): 

 

 

Early on Christmas morning, we awoke to discover that Santa had indeed visited.  There were stockings full of goodies for everyone,

and new toys straight from Santa's workshop at the North Pole:

 

Leah's present from Santa was a stroller, high chair, and Pack N' Play for her baby dolls.  She is turning into a little Mommy and loved pushing her babies around in her new stroller on Christmas morning.  Luke received the Batman Bat Cave that he wanted so badly, and his new interest in superheroes was a recurring theme in his gifts this year:

The only thing that could tear our children away from opening presents was the opportunity to play in the snow on this White Christmas.  They had a wonderful, full day sledding, playing with toys, and opening gifts, and are such great ages to believe in the magic of the holiday:

 

I loved the Luke and Leah's holiday outfits this year.  Besides their matching dressy Christmas clothes, the kids had 3 pairs of coordinating pajamas (Santa, reindeer, and snowmen), and several casual outfits that matched (snowman shirts, Christmas tree shirt/dress, and lots of red & white).  It's a challenge to find coordinating attire for a boy and a girl, but thanks to grandparents, we had a great collection of Christmas outfits this holiday season.

 

My most precious Christmas memory involves Luke at the Christmas Eve church service (and I didn't think anything would ever top sweet baby Leah's open-mouthed singing of "Angels We Have Heard on High" last year!). Somehow we miraculously made it all the way through the service with our two young children, to the final hymn, "Silent Night"(without having to excuse ourselves early due to a possible melt-down). The lights dimmed, and everyone in the congregation held lit candles and sang in unison. I looked over at Luke as he gazed down at his own candle and began softly singing in his sweet, clear voice. Tears formed in my eyes at the sight of my firstborn son, who looked just like a little angel with his face lit by candlelight, so pure and innocent. It was one of those absolutely perfect Christmas memories that I will cherish and hold in my heart forever. 

 

We had a great Christmas in PA, and were even able to stay an extra day as another winter strom brought more snow later in the week.  Here are some of our favorite pictures from Part 2 of our Christmas vacation:     

Christmas 2012: Part 1

We just returned from a wonderful week of Christmas travels. Part 1 of our trip was our Winterhoff Family Christmas in Williamsburg, VA. We have established some fun traditions over the past few years at our Christmas celebration at Bean and Poppy's house and always create so many wonderful memories.  One of the best parts is that Luke and Leah are able to celebrate Christmas with their cousins, and we parents, aunts, and uncles savor the time that our children spend together.  The kids exchange "cousin presents" the first night, and there are LOTS of new toys to keep everyone entertained.  Bean and Poppy's gifts to their grandchildren are opened the next day, and I marvel at the organization, shopping, planning, and wrapping that must go into that enormous operation!  Each year, we attempt to take a picture of the children dressed up in their Christmas finery, and also have a birthday party for Baby Jesus, with special songs, a story, and cake of course!  We were also fortunate enough to be able to attend the Offutt Family Christmas party in Williamsburg this year, which was held on the same weekend.  This annual event was started by Mark's grandparents in their home years ago, and includes extended family, and more little ones each Christmas it seems!  I bet Great-Grammy couldn't imagine that someday she would have 10 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren (and more on the way)!  It's a fun reunion and we loved being a part of such a wonderful family Christmas this year.  Below are some of my favorite pictures from our Williamsburg Christmas weekend:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luke with Great Grammy.

 

Here is a slideshow of more pictures from our Winterhoff Christmas weekend:

Starring Role

Luke came home from preschool a few weeks ago with some exciting news:

“Mommy, I’m going to be Joseph in our Christmas Program!”

After some quizzing to ascertain the validity of this statement and a quick glance at the teacher’s daily news (which did state that costume fittings and rehearsals for this year’s program had commenced), I was convinced that Luke was, indeed, going to have the starring role in his Christmas program.  And I nervously and immediately called Mark.

“Do those teachers not know Luke at all?”  I quietly hissed into the phone.  “He spent last year’s program staring at the floor, not uttering a word, and sang all of his Halloween songs this fall with his farmer hat over his face…”   (And dare I remind you readers that Luke performed his entire Vacation Bible School Program with his back to the congregation, so we had a lovely view of the back of his head).  I know how unpredictable and precocious our little man can be, and I now was anxious for him and the pressure that accompanies so many eyes on a child who has the lead in the school play. 

Mark chuckled and acknowledged my concerns, but reassured me:  “It’s just a preschool program, Carrie.  He’ll be fine!”

Since that time, we’ve been proudly announcing to grandparents (one of whom is a retired pastor, mind you), friends, and anyone who is interested about how excited Luke is to be Joseph, and how we all can’t WAIT to see the program this year with our son in the starring role!!

And then, one night this week at dinner, Luke started talking to us about that day’s program rehearsal at school, and he kept alluding to a donkey. 

“What do you mean?”  I asked Luke.  “When you are dressed up as Joseph during practice, do you lead a donkey to the stable?  Is another one of your classroom friends dressed up as the donkey?”

“No,”  Luke carefully replied.  “I don’t want to talk about it, Mommy.  It will just be a surprise.”

Mark raised his eyebrows at me, and I knew that we were thinking the same thing. 

After putting Luke to bed that night, Mark turned to me and asked, “Is our son the ASS now?”

And over the past couple of days, every time I thought about that “demotion”, I started laughing so hard that tears came to my eyes.  It was SOOOO much more fitting!  I mean, who CARES about the donkey’s behavior, right?   There would be NO pressure on the morning of program day if our son was the donkey!  We could sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!!

We never did get a clear answer from Luke as to whether he was going to be Joseph or the donkey. 

The Christmas program started this morning with a sweet reading of This is the Stable:

“This is the stable, dusty and brown,

In a quiet corner of Bethlehem town…”
 

A few verses later, we had our answer, as the teacher read:

 “This is the donkey, gray and white,

who stood near the manger all through the night.”   

  Luke proudly walked down the aisle of the church, with a cardboard cut-out picture of a donkey around his neck. A hint of a smile was on his lips, a spring in his step, and he gave Mark a high five as he passed him. 

 

The program was adorable, as all preschool programs are. Sweet, innocent, voices singing Christmas songs, God’s children joyfully playing hand bells and dressed in their holiday best:  

 

And somewhere in that church were two parents of the donkey, beaming with pride at their son, who did indeed have the starring role in their lives, that day and always.   

 

Hollywild Christmas Safari

 

We're old pros now at our annual visit to Hollywild's Christmas Safari, and each year we can't wait for this uniquely distinctive South Carolina tradition.  It's still surreal to us that after viewing acres of beautiful Christmas lights from our car, that we are permitted to freely drive through a field of large animals at the wildlife park and feed them:

  

 

After feeding the wild animals from our car windows, we parked and walked around Hollywild's Christmas village.  Leah's favorite part was giving a bottle to the baby animals:

We saw lots of barnyard friends, camels, llamas, and even Santa's reindeer, and spent a fun evening enjoying this little piece of southern culture:

 Our children absolutely love this night each holiday season, and we always giggle at the entertainment that our Hollywild visits provide.  The joy that we experience at the Christmas Safari every year is a wonderful example of the merriment of the season!   

Celebrity Sighting: Santa... and his Reindeer!

 

A silly Santa made an appearance at our house recently.  Mustache and all, we thought he was quite adorable:

 

 

Everyone knows that Santa has reindeer to help guide his sleigh, but we couldn't seem to locate these furry guys anywhere.  The snowman antlers were close, but this cute impostor didn't fool us:

 

 

We checked in Winnie's dog crate, but no reindeer were hiding there either... just a few elves:

 

 

We searched high and low, and finally at bedtime, we heard the pitter patter of reindeer paws and spotted Dasher and Dancer (or is that Comet with Cupid?):

 

 

Although we were supposed to be getting ready for bed, certain reindeer were much too excited to sleep!

 

 

Such fun only happens once each year, so we stayed up late to enjoy these sweet, polka-dotted reindeer giggles: 

 

Blowing one final reindeer kiss to wish you sweet dreams:

 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

O Tannenbaum: Version 10.0

 

This year marks my 10th married Christmas with Mark, and on our way to pick our tree last week, we reminisced about some of the adventures and mishaps we've shared over the last decade of choosing Christmas trees together.  Here are some highlights:

 

Year 1 (2003): Living in a tiny 3rd floor apartment near Boston, MA, we chose a tree that was waaaayy too big for our small space.  We could barely fit the monstrosity in the elevator in the apartment building and reenacted a scene from a "Friends" episode as we tried to navigate it through tight interior corners and hallways, shouting "PIVOT!"  I was so intent on having our first matrimonial Christmas tree be perfect, and wasn't prepared for the knobby trunk that we tried to jam into the tree stand, my frustration as we futilely attempted to hack off bottom branches with our Miracle Blade knife (b/c as 20-something year-old "urbanites", we didn't own a saw), and the resulting sappy, sticky hands, clothes, and hair.  We were so exhausted and fed up with the whole process that I believe the words, "YOU ARE RUINING CHRISTMAS!" were shouted... at the tree, of course, and not at each other as happy newlyweds, right?

 

Year 2 (2004):  We moved into our first house, an adorable, charming Cape Cod in Roanoke, VA this year.   We drove with our new puppy, Winnie, (and our new saw!) to a Christmas tree farm (in nearby rural southwest Virginia), where we cut down our own tree.  Learning from the mistake of Year 1, we chose a much smaller tree for our second Christmas together.  This ended up being was a good decision, since we apparently parked miles from the field where we actually found our tree, and had to lug it through acres of woods to get back to the car.  When we got home, we realized that the tree was so small that we actually needed to place it on a (covered) milk-crate to be large enough to be at eye level.  "Charlie" was our first named tree, after his puny Charlie Brown-tree stature.     

 

Years 3-4 (2005-2006):  We spent two more, blissful, idyllic Christmases in our Roanoke house, and continued our tradition of naming our trees.  One of these years we dubbed our tree, "Caesar", because we stopped at Little Caesar's for carry-out pizza on the way home (I think that's the only time we've eaten that pizza in the 14 years that we've known each other).  Getting smarter each year, we learned that after spending the day finding and bringing home a tree and then adorning it with ornaments and lights, that the last thing we wanted to do was cook dinner.  Cheap pizza never tasted better!  "Douglas" was another name of one of our Roanoke trees, because he was a Douglas fir (original, I know).      

 

Year 5 (2007):  Pregnant with Luke, and in our new house in South Carolina, we enjoyed the new freedom we had in choosing a larger tree for our 2-story tall great room.  Up until this point, our Christmas tree was decorated each year solely with ornaments that Mark and I received each year of our childhoods and adolescent years.  We realized that the next Christmas we would be starting our own family tradition as we would buy our first ornament for our baby's collection!  We received a very special gift this Christmas of a homemade tree skirt sewn by my mom, which looked wonderful on "Frasier", our first North Carolina Frasier fir.    

 

Year 6 (2008):  We overdid everything this year, to commemorate Baby's First Christmas.  "Goliath" was over 12 feet tall, had 1400 white lights (I think it required 2 trips to the store to buy more!), and was colossal.  A step ladder was required to decorate the top 1/3 of the tree, as well as creative reaching from our second story catwalk balcony to hang the star on the top branch. 

 

Year 7 (2009):  As busy parents of an active toddler we decided to take a short-cut this year, and chose an average-sized, modestly-priced tree out of our grocery store parking lot, which was 1/2 mile from our house.  Oh, the ease and convenience of this mediocrity was wonderful (and guilt-free, since we were too tired to care!).  However, we narrowly avoided disaster as Mark momentarily forgot that "Bloom" (named after the grocery store) was tied to the roof of our SUV and he tried to pull the Jeep into our garage.  We chuckle about it now, but it almost wasn't very funny at all!

 

Year 8 (2010): We barely had our tree inside and in the tree stand for 30 seconds when our wild 2-year old ran at it with full force and knocked it over completely.  We emerged unscathed and were thankful that there were no ornament casualties or damage to our furniture.  We spent this Christmas thinking that Leah would arrive any moment.  Due to my hazy pregnancy brain at the time, I don't think we named our tree, but it might as well have been named "Carrie" (as I think I was the same size as the tree at 38 weeks pregnant with a 9 + pound baby in my very round belly). 

 

Year 9 (2011): This year was Leah's first Christmas, and our fifth tree for our Greenville home.  At this point in our tree-decorating, each tradition was familiar and established.  Mommy always did the lights, Daddy knew just what angle was perfect to fit the tree through the back door, and Luke served as a very helpful big brother to hang up his baby sister's first Christmas ornament, along with his own special growing collection. 

 

Year 10 (2012): But out of all of these stories and memories created during our past decade of Christmas tree adventures, this year has been the best by far.  Luke remembers many of our past Christmas traditions regarding our tree, and Leah is old enough to be an active part of the tree-decorating process.  She and Luke were adorable this year, and were giddy with anticipation on the day that we chose our tree.  They helped us select the perfect tree, oohed and ahhed over each ornament, and if you look at our tree closely in person, you may see clumps of ornaments at about the 3-foot level, which has been "redecorated" several times by eager helpers:

 

 

Leah was happy to direct her brother as to the exact placement of several of the ornaments:

Each child took their job very seriously and they were darling little tree decorators:

 

 



No ladders were needed this year, as our elves could reach even the highest branches while perched on Daddy's shoulders:

 

Our sweet reindeer, Winnie, was a great supervisor of the tree-decorating process as well (and a great sport to don her antlers!):

The cuteness was overwhelming, and we enjoyed watching our sweets take such pride in decorating their tree this year.  We don't have a name for this tree yet, and are accepting submissions from our blog readers in the "Comments" section.  Here's one last look:

 

 

10 Christmas trees and counting, and we know that the best is yet to come! 

A Visit with Santa

Our holiday activities are in full swing this month and we've made our annual visit to the Roper Mountain Holiday Lights to see Santa Claus! 

Luke was his usual charming self and happily climbed right up into Santa's sleigh.  After giving the jolly red guy a big high five, Luke matter of factly told Santa: "I want LOTS of things for Christmas".  Mommy reminded Luke that he especially wants a Batcave and Batman figures, and Santa confirmed that his elves could indeed make these toys at their North Pole workshop.  Phew! 

I was pretty sure that Leah would have nothing to do with Santa Claus, and she did cling tightly to me the entire time.  In an effort to avoid a "screaming child sitting in Santa's lap photo" for the second year in a row, Mommy hopped in the picture and held my very serious girl:

 

The children posed with the holiday-themed decorations and plywood cut-outs that annually adorn Roper Mountain's Winter Wonderland, and we got into the Christmas spirit as we drove through the park to see all of the pretty lights.  Leah tasted her first candy cane and I'm pretty sure this was the high point of the evening for her:

Santa has even created personalized video messages (via e-mail) for Luke & Leah that they adore and watch each day on the computer:

Luke has also started his Advent calendar again this year and is already counting down the days until Christmas.  What fun this month will be!