New Traditions

Now that Wesley is in Kindergarten and surrounded by fellow five and six year olds, I wonder how many more Christmas's we've got before he figures out (or is told) Santa isn't real. One more year? Maybe two? The thought actually makes me sad. It's been such a joy every year having these two little innocent people living in the house. Especially around the Holidays. This year we decided to include a new tradition, Elf on a Shelf. I'm sure, if you are a parent, that you've heard of this. It's a little elf that is sent from the North Pole to watch over your children and report back to Santa on whether they've been naughty or nice. Well, I got on Amazon to order one of these little elves and proceeded to read all the reviews, good and bad. Most people loved it, but then there were several that said the actual elf itself scared their children and they suggested looking at some of the other "knock off" elf on a shelf products that had happier, nicer looking elves. So I looked around and decided on Christopher Pop-In-Kins.

Christopher is a jolly little elf that has bendable arms and legs so he can be put pretty much anywhere. Every night Christopher magically leaves and reports back to Santa in the North Pole and then returns before the children wake up and finds a new place to perch and watch them. The kids are having fun with Christopher. Each morning they run around the house trying to find Christopher. They know they can't touch him or he'll lose his magic that Santa gave him (the magic that allows him to return to the North Pole each evening). They like to read the book that explains how Christopher came to our house. It's a great new tradition and I'm happy the kids aren't scared of him.

Christopher hung out on top of the tree yesterday. 

Last weekend I got the kids a gingerbread house kit (seriously who has the time to make that stuff from scratch?). They were super excited.....not so much to make it but rather to eat as much candy in the process. Alex was over and got to help too. The fun thing about this years gingerbread house was that we made it on Saturday and ate in on Monday. Usually we don't ever eat them, they just sit around as a decoration during the holiday season and then get chucked in the trash come New Year. Not this year! We gobbled that sucker down yesterday and it was delish! Might just have to be a new tradition.