Christmas with the Cranes

It's so magical to experience the spirit of the season with a two-year old. We've had such a wonderful few weeks preparing for Christmas in our house.

Emma was very excited to decorate the Christmas trees. She helped with all three. We have one in the living room - our "grown up" tree that has coordinating ornaments, etc. Emma carefully placed the snowflakes and berry twigs. Another tree can be found in the playroom/den - this one is a Nutcracker themed tree. Emma had great fun decorating the tree, placing each of the characters from the ballet, making sure that they all had chocolates hanging nearby. The final tree is in Emma's room. We were going with snowflake ornaments, then Emma located some huge plastic Christmas balls and a Blues Clue ornament to hang on the branchnes. It is quite the tree!!

This season has been full of firsts for Emma, even though this is her third Christmas. We enjoyed baking and decorating cookies together. She made sure to put on her apron from Auntie Rel and pick out just the right cookie cutters. She also picked out blue icing (very festive) and decorated each cookie herself.

Watching the cookies bake.

Mmmm...icing.

The finished product.

Emma had her first Christmas Program at Preschool and sang lots of songs. Her favorite was Jingle Bells. Of course, being the proud parents we are, filmed it all. Emma even hit a note on her own at the end of one of her songs. Too funny. Maybe she'll be a performer like her mommy and daddy.

As Christmas grew closer, we talked about many things about the day. First and foremost, we talked about how this was the birthday of Jesus. She is quick to point out any Baby Jesus that she sees in mangers as we drive. We also bought a Little People nativity set in which she has let all the animals in the house join in on. She has also been asking quite frequently, as she did to GiGi one day at her house when looking at tree, "Where's Baby Jesus!?" At the Christmas Eve service, she made sure to bring in her little people Baby Jesus so she could hold him through the service since we were celebrating his birthday.

We also talked about Santa Claus. Emma hasn't been too sure of this guy (just like her mommy was). Any time we talked about going to see him and sitting on his lap, she would say, "No ho ho." When we'd ask her if Santa was going to bring her toys, she would say, "No ho ho. Baby Jack and Mommy and Daddy bring toys." As we got closer to Christmas, she started to talk more about Santa, even calling him Santa instead of Ho Ho. She decided that she wanted him to bring her a Jessie doll from Toy Story 3. On Christmas Eve, she was so excited to track him across the globe. We made food for the reindeer and filled it with magic sprinkles to help them fly. After church we sprinkled it through the yard. That night, she made sure to set out cookies for him (as well as milk and ice water). In addition, she wanted to make sure the reindeer were refreshed. We had to put a bowl of water on the porch.

Tracking Santa Claus

Making Reindeer Food

Reindeer Food!!!!

Ready for church.

Excited for Christmas!

Spreading reindeer food in the yard.

Christmas Eve with cousins Audrey and Natalie.

Cookies for santa.

Being very careful with the milk for santa.

Also needs ice water.

Making sure reindeer are satisfied too.

Christmas morning came and we had SNOW!! I think Dusty and I were more excited than Emma, this being our first white Christmas in Chattanooga. Emma came downstairs, just taking it all in. First she checked to see if Santa ate the cookies. She was quick to note he didn't finish them all. Then she remembered the reindeer and ran out to see the bowl. They had drunk all of the water and left some of their food in the bowl with their messy snouts! Then we said, check your stocking. So she slowly went back over to the fireplace and saw none other than Jessie sticking out! The look on her face was just priceless. It melted my heart!

Jessie doll! Of course we had to go get our Jessie hat that Gigi and Pop brought back from FL.

We opened the rest of our presents and enjoyed a nice breakfast with family. Then it was off to build snowmen in the yard. We got about 4 inches of snow! How wonderful!

View from the front porch

Emma's snowman

Yes, for those of you that know our house, we're not standing in front of it. Used the neighbor's snow!

This was absolutely an amazingly beautiful Christmas for so many reasons. I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful family, with such an amazing daughter and husband who never cease to amaze me in all ways possible.