Christmas traditions and best buds

Merry Christmas time! I love the Christmas season, and the fact that the whole world (well, much of it at least) is celebrating the birth of our Savior. It's also nice to hear songs of the Savior on the radio. I'll admit, I prefer the traditional Christmas songs to the newfangled ones. I thinkg "O Holy Night" is my favorite, even though it's not a canonized hymn persay.

I also love Christmas traditions! This year has been so fun so far, because it's really our first year doing Christmas. Our first year, we had a tiny tree with a few lights and scattered ornaments I'd stolen from my little brother (I didn't really steal them... my mom had decorated his dorm room with them the previous year, and stored them with our stuff. He didn't want any of it back...) We opened our presents, which we'd purchased for each other with each other, on Christmas Eve because Thomas worked a double shift on Christmas. We had Parker our 2nd year, but he was only 7 months old, and I don't think we even got him any presents... He did open some at Grandma and Grandpa Palfreyman's though. Last year was a lot of fun. We got Parker some presents (we didn't worry about Evan, since he was barely 2 months old), but we were in North Dakota with Thomas' family, so we did stockings and everything there. It was a lot of fun to share in their traditions. Thankfully, our families' traditions mesh really well, and we're adding in some of our own. I bought fabric to finally make our Christmas stockings. I'm looking forward to that :) My mom took the above picture of Evan while we were shopping for said fabric. That was an experience and a half! I'm actually waiting for my mom to get back from NYC to make the stockings... I'm not willing to try on my own and mess up! I actually never had my own Christmas stocking growing up. My brothers all did... even Michael, who's younger than I am...?... but I didn't have one, and so always used my mom's. Somehow, Santa still managed to put little Theresa's presents in the stocking labeled "Susan." Intuitive old elf :) I wanted to make sure that I'd be making stockings that would still coordinate when we add future stocking to the family, so I just got coordinating printed fabric, and matching fleece for the tops. They'll be fantastic, and all ours!!!

Another new tradition: on the Monday after Thanksgiving we made a tree topper for our little tree. Actually, this is the fourth annual year. :) Our first year we had a paper star, don't remember year two, last year was a fantastic angel, and this year is a paper mache star that the boys helped with. Cereal boxes, newspaper, flour, water, and a little paint :)

We decorated the tree last night: first Sunday in December! It was so fun. It's great to get into the excitement of Christmas. We have nativities set up all over the house. I put on on the hallway table that the boys can't destroy. They enjoy playing with them, and Parker loves to hear me talk about baby Jesus being born. It's fun to have the chance to teach the boys about our Savior and his love for us.
Parker's new thing is to want to eat at his little table (lil soupa) in the kitchen. Evan has enjoyed it too. It's crazy how much they're growing up!