Weekend Full of Christmas Traditions

The Selph household had a weekend crammed full of Christmas traditions. Yay!! It did us good to get out, celebrate Christmas traditions, and have lots of family time after the trying 2 weeks we've had around here. Not every single thing about our weekend went exactly as planned but all in all we had a good, fun, memory-making time.

I mentioned the pancake breakfast with Santa to Garrison late Friday afternoon and he was all about it. He was actually excited! I was shocked. Who knew?? Despite the fact that he had a little anxiety over it at bedtime Friday night we made the decision to go ahead with the breakfast and take our chances on a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad experience. Haha.

We arrived at the breakfast, spotted Santa, held our breath... and then exhaled. Little man was so excited. He was amazed and wowed... from a distance. Austin could care less, he just wanted to be fed, but my firstborn was star struck. It was pretty precious. While we enjoyed our pancakes Garrison had the opportunity to warm up, get used to the idea of sitting with Santa, observe him from a distance, and even watch other kiddos sit up in his lap. Perfect.

When the time came he was a little shy and apprehensive but smiling and happy. (And it helped when Santa said Garrison, I didn't know you were gonna be here!) So I took that opportunity to hand Austin to Mrs. Claus (against his will) and put Garrison right up in Santa's lap. Austin cried his eyes out the whole time while Garrison was smiling away posing for the picture. It was hilarious.

 

Then I switched places with Mrs. Claus and all was right in the world again. Sort of. I guess you could say Austin wasn't impressed. At all.

After Terrell snapped a few pictures we told Santa bye and got ready to leave. Garrison never told him what he wanted for Christmas... which I think he was fine with. There was another family waiting on us to finish up and after Austin's crying/screaming episode we were trying to get out of there kind of fast. Even though Garrison didn't carry on a conversation with Santa it was still a huge success to mama and daddy. Yay!

Saturday night we planned for our second annual "viewing of neighborhood Christmas lights and making a stop for ice cream". =) Last year our experience did not live up to expectations. And it didn't this year either. Sigh. I'm thinking it needs some tweaking.

The night started with an early supper, baths immediately following, and pictures in front of the tree. (They've grown sooo much.)

Then we hopped in the car in search of Christmas lights. After seeing approximately 3 houses decorated with lights Garrison started complaining and asking for his drink and wanting to know when we were getting ice cream. Ahhh. It was kind of like deja vu... but without the screaming infant. Then we were disappointed at the lack of "decked out" houses. There just weren't very many. It was a bummer. On a happy note we saw one really impressive house on our way back home that was everybody's favorite. It brightened the mood of the whole car. And then we enjoyed ice cream at home before bedtime. That helped the mood too. =)  

One Friday night coming up we're thinking about taking the kids to Scoops on the square for ice cream before walking around the square and checking out all the lights in town. Up close and personal. Then, we can look at lights from the car on the way home too. I'm thinking ice cream first might be the key. Plus being able to get out of the car. Guess we'll see.

On Sunday we enjoyed yet another tradition... a huge, delicious lunch at The Blue Willow Inn! We invited both sets of grandparents, my sister and Frankie, and the great-grandparents to join us. It's a tradition that started back in 2007... our first true Christmas in Covington, but we had missed the past 2 years and were able to do it again this year. The food never disappoints. Delish! It was a little crazy with the boys but nothing disastrous occurred so I guess we can call it a success. My favorite part was having my family back over to our house for a little bit. Having people over at Christmas time is special, and this is our only opportunity for family to come to us so it was nice. It made my 3 year old a wild man but I guess that's to be expected. Everyone went to bed early last night! 

A new tradition we continued was our Advent Nativity. Garrison is loving it. It is the first thing he asks for every single morning. We aren't always able to do it as a family because there are days when we're waking up at different times but my oldest little man is so excited about it and enjoying it so much. He can't wait to open up the number to see what's inside and to read the Bible verse. It's been a great way for us remember the Christmas story daily and I'm so thankful to have it.

I think that recaps our weekend of traditions. Unfortunately I had to go waaay light on the pictures because I'm out of space again. Ugh. And in the process of trying to create more space I've deleted at least one picture from the blog. Boo. Blogger hasn't been my friend lately. At this point I'm planning to upgrade as a temporary fix because this blog has become our family photo album and around the holidays there are more photos than ever. Sooo, unless someone else has another idea, that's the plan. Later this month I'll post more pictures from our weekend because those Santa pictures are just priceless. And so are the ones in front of the tree. And they can't be left out... grandparents want to see!