This is our fourth year visiting Santa at the Festival of Trees. It’s great to see him every year. This year we went with Rory and Poppy, and all four kids were (mostly) happy to go say hello. They were a little nervous, but there were absolutely no tears. I’m sure the candy canes helped.
Alma told Santa she wants a unicorn with a glowing horn (anyone have any ideas for this?). Rory told Santa he wants a Poli. Harriet and Poppy didn’t tell Santa what they want.
Merry Christmas!
As I said last year, I’m going to do something as an alternative to Elf of the Shelf. My inspiration came from the Kindness Elves. My reality is still evolving (more on that later), but for this year, I settled on Goodness Gnomes.
They made their first appearance earlier this month. As luck would have it, the girls got a package in the mail from my aunt Kim. When I shook it, I could tell it was something Christmasy – I figured ornaments or something. I decided it would be cool if the Goodness Gnomes delivered it to Alma and Hattie as a fun introduction.
When they girls woke up in the morning, they found that two gnomes had come through the fairy door with a package.
They also had a note saying that they should name the goodness gnomes. Alma named the red one Tasty, and Hattie named the blue one PuBa.
They loved the goodness gnomes.
I thought to myself, “Yes! It’s working! My girls are amazing and I will be able to teach them all about kindness and goodness and giving!”
They opened the package and for the most amazing Christmas hats. Seriously, my aunt is a knitting genius. Hats with jingle bells. I can’t even. They are gorgeous.
We had lots of fun that day. Alma wore her hat to school. Hattie kept hers on much longer than she usually keeps hats on. We did lots of jingling. And playing with Tasty and PuBa.
But… the day was sort of hard on Tasty. Alma took it upon herself to give him a shave. He almost lost an arm.
He has gone back through the fairy door. He has not come back. He might send some (more sturdy) friends next year (or maybe the next…) to continue this tradition. For this year, my girls got a taste of magic and some amazing hats. Good enough for me, I think!
It is becoming a tradition to go cut down our own Christmas tree. I like this for a few reasons. First, it’s fun to get out in the middle of a muddy field, look for the perfect tree, and find it. Second, I love that Jesse can show off his man-skills by cutting down the tree. Third, we like trees that are little more sparse so there’s room to hang the ornaments, and it’s often hard to find these at Christmas tree lots.
Last year we with with my dad and step-mom and had quite an adventure (including our trailer un-hitching from the tractor and the tractor driver not noticing). This year we went with my mom and step-dad and had a less eventful, but just-as-fun time.
This year we went to the bargain field (which is actually the same field we found our full-price tree in last year, just way more picked over this year (obviously)) and found my favorite tree we’ve ever had.
