Festiveness

Well, the holidays are upon us.  I have always  loved this time of year but having a child has multiplied that joy tenfold.  I just love all of her firsts and am looking forward to making her Christmases full of love, magic, and delicious smells, just like mine was.  Our first Thanksgiving in our new house was perfect.  Eric's Mom and step-dad were in town and we had six more friends over as well.  It was a full house but perfect.

We enjoyed our visit and the grandparents got lots of baby snuggles

Now, usually I am a firm believer in allowing Thanksgiving to have it's time to shine.  This year, however, I couldn't contain the Christmas cheer and I decorated before the big day.  In my defense Thanksgiving was really late this year, I had to work the following weekend, and I really wanted to decorate.  I love our new home all decked out and even have TWO Christmas trees (a dream realized), granted the second one is little but still.

Hanging the first ornament

Now when you get married and have kids there is bound to be some merging of family traditions.  The first year that Eric and I were dating I remember him receiving a card at the beginning of December wishing him a Happy St. Nicholas Day with a twenty tucked inside.  What is this?! Another occasion for gifts in December?!  Well, turns out this is a real thing.  On the eve of December 6th kids put out their shoes/stockings and receive gifts in the morning from St. Nicholas.  It originated in Germany, I think, and, according to Wikipedia (ever accurate source, I know), is still widely celebrated in Wisconsin due to the large population of German and Polish descendents.  Ok, I'll bite, we decided to do one small gift in the stocking on December 6th. This isn't too far from the "early Christmas gift" we often were able to talk our parents out of. 

A preview of Christmas morning!

Oh, and Annalise is 5months old!  New accomplishments include increased mobility, improving grasps, everything goes in to the mouth, super smiley and giggly. Unofficial weigh-in is 14.5lbs! Overall, I have decided that we got pretty lucky with such a good, happy baby.  I'm sure we will get payback if we decide she needs a sibling.

We did the obligatory first Santa visit last weekend.  Honestly I'm not sure how to approach the whole Santa thing since my brother and I never really bought in to it (I'm sure due to our parents not encouraging it), so we'll see how things progress over the next couple years.  It was at least fun to dress her up in her Christmas outfit.

Santa is very serious business

Needless to say, we are enjoying this holiday season.  We look forward to my parents coming to visit over Christmas and the New Year (I guess all we needed to do to have visitors over the holidays was have a baby! We should have done this sooner!)  I will be spending my remaining days off leading up to Christmas baking, wrapping, and singing along to Christmas music.