Therefore, I'm going to compromise and just touch on a few highlights of our holiday season. Okay? Okay.
Honestly, December seems a blur. There were Christmas activities, events, birthday parties for friends, Christmas itself. Something seemed to be going on constantly.
One Friday evening, Amelia's school was supposed to have a movie on the playground, but they had to postpone because of the weather. We invited her friend Grace (and Grace's mom) over, and we had just the best time. We ordered pizza, hung out in comfortable clothes, snacked on Christmas cookies, and had a nice evening. The moms chatted while the girls played.
We made a spontaneous, unplanned trip to see Santa. He was at an outdoor shopping center on a VERY cold day, so there was no line. Amelia wasn't wearing anything Christmasy, and the set-up wasn't very elaborate, but again...NO LINE. Priorities, people. (She asked for a princess guitar and a soccer whistle. Y'all, that soccer whistle was a 59-cent whistle she saw at Party City when we were shopping for goody bags for her birthday. You'll be happy to know Santa delivered the soccer whistle...and Aunt Ashley delivered on the princess guitar.)
I graded like a crazy person the last week or so of school. One day, though, my friend Martha and I just HAD to take a break, so we spent a day in New Orleans. We had lunch at a yummy place called Dick & Jenny's and did some Christmas shopping.
Now, here's a story I must tell...I had bought tickets for Amelia and me to see The Nutcracker at the River Center here in Baton Rouge. I had great seats, and we were pumped. It was going to be a girls' afternoon out! I showed up at the Will Call window, and there were no tickets under my name. The woman took the credit card I purchased them under, and still no tickets. I pulled up my confirmation email on my phone. She scrolled through the email and showed me that I had purchased tickets to The Nutcracker at the River Center in COLUMBUS, GEORGIA. Y'all. What. On. Earth. I almost started crying because I was so mortified / in disbelief that I had done something THAT nutso. I had no clue. Anyway, by this time, the performance was about to start and Amelia was tugging on my arm, ready to take a seat. Since we were already there, I purchased the cheapest tickets they had...and those landed us in the top row of the balcony. Womp wompppppppp.
But my girl looked cute, and she enjoyed the show. I took a couple of pics of her. :-)
I also did quite a bit of cooking and baking this season. Here are some cookies I made to give to Amelia's teachers.
(The photo right above is of all the boxed up / bagged up goodies to take to Amelia's school.)
My parents came the Sunday before Christmas (which was also the day of the "Nutcracker incident) and stayed until Friday. We really enjoyed having them here. They play a lot with Amelia, and I have to give a shout-out to my mother, who was most helpful in washing pots, pans, and dishes while I cooked.
On another kitchen note, every year I say I am going to make the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls, and every year, I back out. The recipe makes seven pans, according to her. I ended up with nine. And dadgum it all, I don't think I took one single photo of the finished product. On Christmas Eve, Amelia and I delivered pans to Martha's family and to Grace's family. And we enjoyed a couple of pans ourselves. (I mean our family enjoyed them. Amelia and I did not consume two pans ourselves.)
Here are my elf and I, delivering the goods:
On Christmas Eve, Amelia did the usual ritual of leaving cookies and hot chocolate for Santa. She had made a special placemat for Santa at school, and she was very concerned that Santa would take the placemat with him. In fact, she wanted to start out her note for him by warning him not to take the placemat, but we assured her that if she whispered those instructions to our Elf ("Princess Ella"), she would see to it that Santa left it. And he did.
Princess Ella was a huge hit this year. Amelia would look for her every morning, first thing. (And then she would go to her Lego advent calendar, which was also a huge hit.)
(By the way, when Amelia discovered the elf standing with the Nutcracker one morning, she said the elf looked "awkward." I can't say I disagree.)
Oh wait...here is Amelia on Christmas Eve, excited about Santa's arrival. (She also checked NORAD every two seconds to update us on Santa's whereabouts. It. Was. Hilarious. Well, the first twenty times, at least.)
And Christmas morning was the usual, but fun, flurry of activity. Amelia was quite thrilled with this Elsa dress that Santa brought. She pretty much wore it nonstop for two days...and danced MANY times to "Let it Go."
My parents gifted Amelia with a karaoke machine. Enough said.
(I think I will enjoy the karaoke machine more when I find a karaoke CD with "Strawberry Wine" or "Walkaway Joe" on it.)
That evening, our friends Damian and Rebecca came over, and they joined all of us for a yummy dinner of prime rib, baked potato casserole, Yorkshire pudding (my first time attempting that, at Darryl's request), roasted asparagus, and dessert. It was a fun, wonderful day -- I really think there is nothing like Christmas with an excited kid. :-)
I thought I was winding it up, but I just realized I left out two things I want to make sure to document. First, somewhere in all that craziness was Amelia's Christmas dance recital. It was a hoot, as always. Here's my cute reindeer.
And last, but not least...this was our first year having a real tree. I. Loved. It. Our artificial tree that we had years finally just bit the dust last year, and since our housing situation is temporary, we didn't want to invest the money in another artificial one just yet. I'm hoping to convince Darryl that we need a real tree every year, though...
(Amelia always enjoyed rearranging the ornaments on it.)
This post might qualify for the most disjointed one I've ever written.
Anyway. Moving on...
It was a fun Christmas, for sure, but it was busy, busy, busy. We shared some wonderful times with family and friends, and we know we will treasure these memories for years to come!
The End.
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