Um, Merry Christmas?

I really have no excuse for why I’ve been an absentee blogger except to say that the holidays did, in fact, swallow me whole and just now spit me out the other side…  Do you feel that way?  We had some kind of craziness or activity every single day leading up to Christmas.  All good things but all serious time drains.  I’ve got a ridiculous amount of photos to share that I will now dump into this post.  I want to end this year by remembering all of the amazing things we did this holiday season yet I know this isn’t the most appropriate way to present this information.  But what am I gonna do?  I simply ran out of time to post each story individually…  Perhaps things will be better in 2012 in terms of blogging consistently?  Well, better in terms of everything would be really nice too.

Let’s see, I left off blogging on December 13th…  What happened next?  Oh, yes!  Our city’s annual Santa-on-the-fire-truck tradition.  He came zooming by our house at 9:30 PM on December 15th.  We’d been hearing him since 6:30 pm and had waited outside pretty much the entire time.  At 9 PM, I finally had the kids get into bed thinking he was not coming down our street after all.  Then the music and sirens got louder and louder.  The boys shot out of bed just in time to see Santa go speeding by our house!

I also invited Cutie Pie’s preschool class over for lunch during the last week of school before winter break.  We had a yummy assortment of preschool-friendly foods with plenty of pizza, salad and sangria for the moms 🙂  Then the kids camped out in front of the television to watch the new Ice Age Christmas movie on DVD.

Cutie Pie’s preschool Christmas program was on Friday, December 16th.  It struck me while sitting in the audience surrounded by all of the loving friends and family that this will be our last Christmas program at the preschool…  Cutie Pie will be entering Kindergarten in the fall and Eastminster will become a distant memory for him.  Bittersweet, indeed.  And see that little girl with the white fur trimmed dress in the first picture?  Her mom informed me that their entire family will be moving to Shanghai with her husband’s work in March.  It’s an exciting adventure for them but it will be so sad to see them go.  Wildman was in the three’s class with her middle son and Cutie Pie is now in VPK with her youngest daughter.  It’s funny how lives overlap and you get used to seeing the same familiar faces everyday and then one day they’re gone for whatever reason.  You realize how much you enjoyed their company over the years.

Saturday, December 17th brought the Satellite Beach Boat Parade!  It was our first time participating.  We were so excited to be a part of this cool Florida Christmas tradition!  We left the dock with Big Red, his kids and our across-the-street neighbors at 5 PM.  The parade began at the north entrance to the Grand Canal at 6 PM.  The weather could not have been more perfect- clear with wonderfully mild temperatures.

On Saturday night, after the boat parade, we quickly changed into our best vintage polyester and headed over to our friends’ Disco Funk Christmas Party!  What a crazy fun evening!

The Sunday before Christmas brought sugar cookie decorating with the cousins and breakfast for dinner!

We delivered Christmas goodies to the neighbors and hosted a little family party for Wildman’s 7th birthday on Monday, December 19th.  He insisted on an Angry Birds cake from Publix and was thrilled with all of his amazing gifts including a sweet child-size kayak from J and I.

On December 20th, we hosted a little beach bonfire for Wildman’s classmates to celebrate the last day of school before winter break and also roast s’mores in honor of Wildman’s birthday.

This post has grown much too long!  Looks like I will have to break it up into two.  Stay tuned!

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Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a pretty busy day as I imagine it is for most people.  I spent the morning battling the crowds at Walmart and the grocery store for some last minute Christmas day supplies.  I came home and tossed a salad together for dinner that evening with Yaya, whipped up a quick casserole for the morning then set out to make sugar cookies with the cousins.  Making and decorating sugar cookies is an annual tradition that slipped until Christmas Eve this year.  Normally we try to make them a week or so before Christmas but ran out of time.

Of course, the boys loved creating crazy confections with the red, green and white icing.  It was like they were competing to see who could pile the most sprinkles on their cookies.  I hope it’s one of those childhood memories they will always remember.

Santa had quite a selection of lovely cookies to choose from on Christmas morning!  The highlight for me was not having to clean ground sugar cookies and sprinkles out of my carpet.  Big Red graciously took the hit this year 🙂

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My mom invited us over to have baked ziti at her house for Christmas Eve dinner.  The boys both passed out on the 5-minute car ride over to Yaya’s house.  They woke back up after J carried them inside.  I think the excitement of the holidays had caught up with them.  We had a nice time together opening a few presents, sipping some good wine and watching Christmas specials on television. After dinner we piled into our car and took a spin around town looking a Christmas lights.

We dropped my mom back off at her house then headed home to give the boys baths and make Santa preparations.  The boys each received a packet of reindeer food from their teachers.

As soon as they donned their new sock monkey jammies we all raced outside to spread the oatmeal/birdseed/glitter mix around the yard and driveway.

The last task of the night was preparing the snacks for Santa and his reindeer.  The boys were excited to  prepare the carrots, cookies and milk!

Once all the snacks were laid out on the table J and I ushered the kiddos off to bed.  Our work as Santa’s helpers had not even begun and it was well past 10 PM!

Pink Flamingos Aren’t Just for the Trailer Park

Cutie Pie’s sweet preschool Christmas program was last Friday.  The kids did a wonderful job performing the holiday songs they’d worked so hard on.  Cutie Pie dressed as the king in the white robe and did an awesome job of remembering all of the words and hand motions for his songs.  Adorable!

I was in charge of the program committee this year which just added another layer of stress to an already stressful time of year.  Of course I was happy to do it but I’m also happy that it’s over too.  Luckily, I had lots of helpers.

This year’s theme was “Christmas in Florida”.  A very talented local artist (and preschool grandparent) graciously offered to make a couple of cute signs for the event.

Another preschool parent made this beautiful layer cake for the “Happy Birthday, Jesus” portion of the program.  This photo does not do the cake justice.  It was gorgeous!

When the children had finished singing, we all made our way over to the fellowship hall for some refreshments. Cutie Pie was so proud of himself!

When planning the decor, I asked Big Red to stage a small landscape in the center of the fellowship hall.  Since his son attends the the preschool too and he had done it a similar thing at Boo at the Zoo this year, I figured he would not have a problem assisting us.  Besides, it was great advertising for his lawn care and landscape company.  Big Red happily agreed to get us whatever plants we wanted.  We had a Christmas palm strung with white and pink lights as the centerpiece with two concentric circles of tropical plants and poinsettias extend out from the palm.  It was beautiful!

No “Christmas in Florida” design would be complete without pink plastic lawn flamingos!  We had them everywhere!

The whole room looked so festive!  I was thrilled with how everything came together.

We gorged ourselves on lots of yummy food.  We had doughnut holes in three varieties, cheese cubes, tropical fruit salad sprinkled with coconut, pretzels in various holiday shapes, goldfish crackers and pink punch made with raspberry sherbet and lemon/lime soda.  Each of the three buffet tables had a mini potted palm and pink wrapped presents as the centerpiece.  Pink and turquoise glitter snowflakes were scattered around the tables as well.

It was a lovely way to wrap up the end of the semester.