christmas: a month long travelogue

christmas is pretty much the greatest and we all know it. there are always a bajillion things we MUST do and even more things we MUST EAT and we run around like crazies and if we don't do it, christmas is ruined. and if we do all this with our kids, EVEN BETTER!

SO,

since everyone loves a travelogue, here's a travelogue! it's my gift to posterity!

scarlett was in a christmas parade for her cheerleading class. she was by FAR the best. naturally. she is so funny and sweet and very serious about doing the moves properly.

we saw the requisite amateur yet nearly professional incredible light show.

and it cooled off enough that i was able to bust out my fur trimmed sweater! hurray! low 50s!

thomas surprised me with my present early. i told him that for my gift from him, i wanted to go a on a bunch of dates. so, for the first date we went to red robin as a family whilst my new car stereo was installed. double whammy surprise!!! my CD player in my car has been dead for a while so i have been stuck listening to the radio and radio music is 95% terrible with the occasional styx song thrown in. i inhaled my bleu ribbon burger whilst thinking of all the great albums i could start listening to again instead of punching the radio tuning buttons until my fingers bleed.

since we decided to go to georgia for christmas day, we wrote letters to santa and asked him to visit our house on the 21st. he obliged. 

reagan had 1 doable request(and plenty of absolutely ridiculous requests): epic mickey 2. also, he has a fascination with neon signs and memorizing the opening and closing times for stores so we surprised him with his own neon sign. 

he also loves to put on puppets shows, so grandma sandy surprised him with his own puppets.

*note the gross old t-shirt he decided to wear as pajamas this night. i asked reagan to help me pack his bag for our trip and he ended up with one shirt and 5 sets of pajamas. go figure. we had to buy another shirt in georgia and rotate while the other was in the wash.

it's nice when you can actually guess properly on a gift.

scarlett mostly wanted repeats of what she already had. dolls and art supplies. but we were able to guess correctly with a barbie pool.

                         

*scarlett eschewed traditional warm pajamas and wore a gross, stinky workout top of mine. 

athena blythe was the only one in actual pajamas and she liked ripping paper. 

on actual christmas eve in georgia we read the nativity story and wore actual pajamas.

and we opened a few more presents the next morning.

and this cute baby mastered hand to mouth feeding.

christmas dinner was spent at huddle house in middle of nowhere georgia on our way back home.

thomas and i had yet another date and saw jack reacher. thomas is a big michael connelly fan and a big tom cruise fan plus he got to sit next to me so this was his best night ever.

and when the fun was over, the laundry hag showed up. she's a little known and completely unappreciated member of the santa's crew. she trails behind santa a few days and spends an entire day griping and picking up laundry and shoving it in a black garbage bag because every single other laundry receptacle was full to bursting. 

merry christmas.