Christmas Traditions

Since we have been growing together as a family, we have started to create some Christmas traditions.
1) Every year we have been going out with my brother in-laws family to purchase our tree.  This year we thought that it would be fun for the kids to go and cut the tree themselves at the U-Cut lot.  Emma started the event off by falling asleep in the truck, so we let her sleep through most of it.  The boys enjoyed running around looking for that perfect six foot tree.  Lets just say that the tree we found was probably more like seven feet tall, but thanks to uncle Jeremy we kept it in our budget by leaving a two foot stump in the ground.

2) The kids always look forward to opening up their advent calendars in the morning.  This year, the kids were especially excited because they had three calendars to open up.  Grammy and Papa gave them peanut free chocolate ones, I purchased a Lego one during my trip to the Huskies game earlier in the year, and Michelle made a daily activities calendar for the kids.  Michelle and I had to implement some rules to these calendars since the boys would be getting up awfully early to see what they got.  Our new rule was that they could open up their little doors after breakfast.
One of Michelle's activities was to create a snowscape using whip cream, which is always a hit with the kids.

Emma wasn't too sure what to do when I filled her mouth with whip cream.  Lets just say that Michelle was not home to witness this.

3) This year, the kids enjoyed looking for Jingles who would fly back every night and report in with Santa and then would fly back and hide somewhere in our house.  Jingles was found hiding in our tree, stockings, blinds, vases, and cupboards.  The kids are looking forward to his return next year.

See you next year Jingles.

4) Chuck e Cheese, yes Chuck e Cheese is on our list.  No holiday for the kids is complete without a trip to Chuck e Cheese.  This year we tied our trip with a night of looking at the holiday lights in Langley.  Can you believe we made it out of Richmond!  We all enjoyed voting for the best house on the block, which has motivated our kids to want to do more with our house.  Griswolds here we come!!

This was one of our favourites of the night.

5)  A new experience that might make the list was our first trip to Vandusen Gardens which was an adventure in itself.  A couple pieces of advice . . . buy your tickets on line the day before as the line up was anywhere between 45 minutes to 1 hour long, bring some hot chocolate and make sure that you watch the Elf Show.  My favourite part was watching Emma slip under the blocked off areas and Michelle trying to act all calm and natural as she chased the smiling and laughing Emma through the grassy areas.  And of course, I was the supporting husband who heckled Michelle from the right side of the fence.  Shouts of "Hey control your daughter" could be heard from the onlookers!!  HE HE

One of the high"lights" of the night!!

6)  Santa here we come!  We headed off to go and get our pictures with Santa with our new Christmas outfits and neatly combed hair.  The kids had a fun time interacting with the elves and collecting all of the Elf Cards that they could get their hands on.  The picture this year turned out really well . . . my criteria for a good picture with Santa include: no parents in the picture, no screaming kids, and two out of the three kids smiling.  Lets just say that all of the kids are smiling and looking at the camera, who could ask for anything more . . . priceless. 

7)  On Christmas Eve, we have been taking the kids to the Winter Wonderland that is set up at the skating rink.  Yes, we were at the rink again.  We meet up with our cousins and skate around for a couple of hours.  This year, Emma was up on her clompers for about 15 minutes, but she did not last long as Grammy's arms were too tempting.  After our skate we usually go back to Grammy's house for dinner, some hot drinks, and making gingerbread houses, but this year everyone came back to our house.