Christmas Day 2013

Christmas morning was pretty special this year. And for no real reason in particular. Christmas as a mom is just magical. It's so special to watch Emma Claire experience Christmas morning and take it all in. Although this year we didn't really "do" Santa at our house. No, we don't have anything against Santa but we have decided to let Emma Clarie take the lead on the whole Santa thing. This year she thought of Santa as more of a fun character, almost like she thinks about Elmo or her favorite movie characters. And we were totally fine with that. Plus, we got all of the credit for presents ;-) We will re-evaluate next year and see what she thinks. I loved the Santa tradition as a child and I know Emma Claire will too. But at the same time I do want to keep the focus on Jesus, giving to others, and the real reason for the season.

Since the presents under the tree weren't anything new by Christmas morning it took her a while to actually figure out they were for her, and she could open them! It didn't take her long to get it though.

I tried for a cute Christmas morning by the tree picture. She yawned. Typical. 

So I opted for an artsy picture of my Christmas coffee mug instead. 

We gave her the role of handing out presents. She took it VERY seriously.

 She loved helping us open our presents.

Are these pig tails not THE best?! 

Several presents halted the opening process. One of them was her fisher price purse. She played with it for a while before wanting to open more. During her "breaks" the husband and I took turns opening our presents. 

I got a couple of fun necklaces and Emma Claire was convinced that the hot pink one was for her. So I shared and let her wear it for the morning. She loved it. 

This dress is just adorable. There are crayons on the smocking. I ordered a 3T because I'm just not sure when she will be starting "school" so we will get a few seasons of wear out of it. 

BLOCKS! Her favorite. These "blocks" are actually part of a Melissa and Doug farm puzzle.

And the picture of the morning. This was after opening all of her presents and I think it captures her feelings about Christmas perfectly. I just love it. This is a framer for sure. Or maybe even a canvas. I love it that much. 

After opening presents I got to work making breakfast and we watched Elf. This has become a tradition for us on Christmas morning. 

By far her favorite thing was this Santa chocolate sucker. she picked it out weeks ago at the store and I managed to make her forget about it until Christmas morning. 

She was cracking us up hugging it and talking to it. Hilarious. 

By far the funniest moment of the morning came from this Santa sucker. Emma Claire had eaten most of it when she started screaming "Santa's BUTT! BUTT! SANTA'S BUTT!" We couldn't figure out why in the world she was screaming about Santa's butt...until we saw what she was pointing at. The back of the sucker did look just like Santa's rear end. We laughed about it ALL morning. I just wish we had it on video!

 This year I worked really hard to gather gifts for Christmas early. I did a pretty good job with Emma Claire's gifts, and even some for the Hubs. This next year I plan to do even better. I was pretty excited that two of her favorite gifts were from a consignment sale, meaning I spent about $5 combined on them! Score. I also shopped at our favorite used book store using credit to get a bunch of DVDs and books. She did get a few new items, but mostly I was able to get her entire lot of goodies second hand. Read: for a fraction of the price. 

I also simplified almost everything this Christmas season, decor, gifts, and even activities. I tried to just really enjoy the season and take it all in. And even though we talk about Jesus every day we really tried to emphasize that it was Jesus' birthday and that's what we were celebrating. 

Today we finally got all of the Christmas decorations taken down and put up. As much as I love decorating for Christmas I think I love getting my house back in order a little more. There's just something about getting rid of the clutter, deep cleaning, and for me starting the spring cleaning process. I'm going to start purging toys/clothes/decor soon. I've gotta gear up for the spring garage sale season some how ;-)