It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

 So to continue to kick off this wonderful holiday season I decided to scan in all our past pictures with Santa. Clearly St. Nick doesn't make my kids too jolly. I haven't taken them yet this year, so we'll see how it goes. I just thought I should prepare you if it doesn't turn out too well.

This is the only one where Whitney isn't crying but she's actually sitting on Ty's lap, not Santa's. So it doesn't count. (this one is for you Ash)

Christmas Fun

I started our Christmas season a little early this year. Maybe it was because I was almost done with shopping by Thanksgiving. Maybe because we only had 3 weeks down here after Thanksgiving before we go home. Either way, we really love Christmas around here. Here we are decorating the tree. Forgive my pictures, my camera is about to bite the dust. :-(

 I think they are pretty happy with how it turned out:

I saw this awesome tradition and had to copy it. Instead of doing 25 days til Christmas I did 18 days til we go to Grandma's house. I know it's kind of a weird number of days but I had to wait til I could get enough books and it just fell conveniently on family night when we decorated the tree so we just started then. I had a few books already and at our library there is a non profit bookstore so I got most of the books for 25 or 50 cents which was awesome. The most expensive one was $1.50. I was super excited to be able to start this tradition at such a low cost. The girls have really loved opening something every night and we love books around here.

 We got invited to have dinner with some ward friends and also to decorate gingerbread houses. She made little individual graham cracker houses for each kid and it was a lot of fun. I think more candy got in my girls' mouths than on their houses, but that's the point, right? :-)

Have you started any traditions this year? What are your favorite traditions? Hope your holiday season is going splendidly and that you can spend time with those you love (or at least like a little bit)