It is starting to feel a lot like Christmas

The past week was filled with Christmas parade, decorating, shopping, visit to Santa & practice for the Christmas pageant at church. All of this means busy, busy, busy- but it also means that I am completely kick-started for Christmas.

Here is a progression of the week...

Christmas Parade
Waterdown's parade is held at night & we could not have asked for nicer "winter" weather. People in this town take the parade very seriously. Even though the parade doesn't start until 6:30pm, if you went downtown at noon you saw lawn chairs lining the parade route & some vans parked in key location & backed up to the road. It was a nice reminder that although there are big box stores going up at the edge of town, we are still trying to keep ourselves a small town in heart. The kids had a great time & Sydney & Jason enjoyed their ride home in style.


Watching Christmas Specials in their jammies before bed


Tree time...
Sydney & Brad walked home with the tree while Jason & I jetted of to an appointment. Sydney was a great help with decorating the tree, but Jason was just interested in playing with the ornaments.


A Visit to Santa
This morning we went to Greensville Optimist's Breakfast with Santa. I was hoping to be able to post a picture of each kid with Santa, but the pictures didn't turn out for Sydney's or Jason's & again there was no way Jason was going to sit with Santa. I sure hope the ones that we receive in the mail are nice. Overall though things went great. I think we just found a new holiday tradition. The fact that we could do it with friends makes it all the more worthwhile!

Becky, don't think I didn't notice that you turned away from the camera.
Your attempts for a picture with Santa also are not here because they all turned out blurry.

Dress Rehearsal
This afternoon was the final practice before tomorrow morning's big performance. Sydney did really well today, so let's hope she has the same volume tomorrow morning when the whole congregation is there (plus some extras). Last year she did pretty good & as a result got a bigger part this year. Her lines are: "Hee Haw, Hee Haw", "I gave baby Jesus a present", "I did, I did", and "I carried his mother uphill & down. I carried his mother to Bethlehem town".

As you can see Mary is twice the size of Sydney, so it is unlikely that Sydney could carry her- but it is all very cute. It is funny, Sydney is pretty shy- but give her the chance to "perform" and she will typically step right up.

I took the pictures at the dress rehearsal, so that I could focus better tomorrow morning. Break a leg Sydney!!!