Christmas Celebrations: Part 1

Tree, Temple Lights, and some other Holiday Nonsense
A couple days after we arrived home from Ohio where we spent Thanksgiving (I only took one pic...oops), we turned on the Christmas music, lit the pumpkin and cinnamon candles, and brought out the Christmas decor . . . including our fake and very ugly (but at least we have one) Christmas Tree. I have a thing for real trees. Someday . . . someday. Anyway....

Alex wrote his very first Wish List this year. He did it all by himself . . .spelling out and writing everything. "Der Santu, Plez Trumpet, Woode Toe (woody toy), Scorf  (scarf)." Since he makes his letters pretty big, he asked me to write Santa Claus on the envelope for him . . . he told me how to spell it. :)

Alex decided to play with the tree box. 

Getting more of the decorations on

Darling

Mesmerized by the lights.

My beautiful girl

Star

They both wanted to do it, so we did it twice

The finished product . . . a week or so later. The drawings on the wall are the meanings of different symbols of Christmas. Underneath the drawing is the meaning. And, our annual homemade fireplace. One of Alex's favorite traditions. 

At the Washington DC Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they really put on a party during the holidays. Free concerts for an entire month, lights, music, and this . . . an International Creche Exhibit displaying Nativity scenes from all over the world. This is one of a few Brasilian ones. 

We went several times during the holidays. This particular time we had our friends Mercedes, Odir, Jocelyn, Alejandro, and Nesqi.

In front of the temple. So gorgeous!

The kids liked this camel . . . it was hard to keep them off of it. 

And this . . . this is my moon girl. The 500,000 lights, nativity scenes, music, and laughter was no match for the beauty of the moon in this little girl's eyes. She just stood there and stared at it for the longest time. When we left, she cried and sadly  said, "No! Moon! Moon!" I said, "Honey, we'll see the moon again." She said, "Okay . . . bye bye moon. I love you."

We did all sorts of other fun things preceding the days leading up to Christmas as well . . . .

We played with babies . . . a lot. 

We decorated our washing machine with the magnetic reindeer that Mana and Papa sent. 

 

We made Snowman bread

We played super heroes . . . a lot.

We read stories on mommy and daddy's bed while dressed as elves.

We dipped pretzels in chocolate, added some sprinkles, and ate most of them . . . we gave some away too.

We played and tickled each other a lot.

We dressed up like Santa Claus and said, "Ho Ho Ho!"

We dressed up like Mrs. Claus and said, "Cooooookies!!!!"

We also tried to eat some ornaments. We discovered that glitter doesn't taste very good.