The Happiest of Holidays

The holiday season really flew by this year. And that's even with us milking it down to the last drop! Since the day after Thanksgiving, when we put up our tree and decorated the house, we listened to holiday tunes every day to get in the spirit. While the twins are still too young to understand what's going on, we still tried to make it special for them. Every morning I would take them into the living room and do a countdown to turning the tree lights on and their sweet faces would light up with it. By mid-December they knew what the Christmas tree was because when I'd ask them, "where is the Christmas tree?" they would crawl over to it. They did pretty well not messing with it. Occasionally they would tug on a string of lights at the bottom of the tree, but we didn't have to keep ornaments up high or block them from getting to it at all. On weeknights we would take them for a walk around the neighborhood to see Christmas lights and each weekend we picked a new place to walk around that had a lot of lights and music. Riley would always say, "wow" and "ooooh" at all the displays. It was too cute! We took them outside to see Santa coming down the street on the firetruck, but the sirens and horns freaked them out a bit!

On Christmas Eve my parents came out and we all went walking around Gaylord Palms hotel, as it was something free to do and we read that they had a TON of lights. They also had a Christmas show with lots of great music, so it was something fun for the twins to see. They looked pretty adorable in their festive outfits and while they didn't really know what was going on, they were definitely more wound up than usual. They must have sensed the excitement in the air! We took them home and let them stay up a little later than usual and they were pretty entertaining. River was playing with the wrapped presents under the tree and Riley was trying to run off with them!

Click here to see the little present thief in action!

The next morning we tried to make as magical as possible. Which is what we have always done anyway, but this year the focus was on the twins. We let them open presents and I of course took a gazillion pictures. My parents had stayed the night so it was nice having all of us together. The only thing that would have made it even better was if G's parents and sister were there too! But it was a wonderful day filled with lots of gifts, food, love and more cute outfits!

To see a fun video montage of our Christmas celebration, click  here.