Much to our eldest (and likely our youngest's as well, though he has no idea what it all means) Christmas time is drawing near. And as is our tradition, we started to embrace the holiday season this weekend after Thanksgiving. See while we may shop for Christmas before Thanksgiving, we do not believe in actually decorating prior. Despite protests from our eldest since the stores have been decorated for quite some time and she loves Christmas decorations.
So Friday we went out and picked out a tree. We then brought it in, but didn't put decorations on it until Saturday. We had to remind our eldest that we always do that to help the branches completely fall into place first. And well, besides it is better to do the decorating earlier on with little ones now.
So we held of on decorating until after naps on Sat. And Saturday morning we took them to the mall where they got to see Santa. And besides just seeing Santa, they both actually went and visited with Santa. Last year, Jordan truly meant she wanted to see Santa. As in see him from behind the fenced in area. Which was ok with us. This year though they both visited with him. And like always she did all the talking. Though without prompting she did tell him what she thought he would like for Christmas. She did the same when she wrote her first letter to Santa.
So as it was our turn they walked up to Santa hand in hand. Very cute. Then he got a little timid, but never cried or protested. In fact it was like he was frozen. Jordan, however, would likely have talked Santa up all day long is she had been allowed.

We also went and picked a child off of the Salvation Army tree while we were there. I figured Jordan would like to pick a little girl about her age. Close. She wanted a little boy about her age. Hmm.... When we went to pick out a coat I think she started to reconsider her decision as I informed her that boys don't like sparkles or pink on their coats. She agreed, but was not impressed at the boys selection. Sigh. She can't imagine life without pink or sparkles.
After nap we did decorate the tree. She was excited as anticipated. He was also excited, which almost surprised us. He was so proud of himself as he put on an ornament exclaiming "I did it Momma!" Funny thing was Daddy helped quite a bit, but he never said I did it Daddy. He liked the ornaments with loops on them as he could do it himself. He didn't quite understand the hooks, but even if you put one up for him he was just as excited as if he'd done it himself.

About three-quarters of the way through he tired of it and sat down right beside us and started to play. Here is our tree after it was finished.

And though we thought it was done - they disagreed and tried to rearrange the ornaments up until bedtime.

When I snuck out to get pictures of the lights on the house (courtesy of their daddy) look who wandered to the door. Notice the shoes in his hand. He was slower in getting to the door because he had to get them. He wanted to make sure I knew he was ready to go (though I wasn't going anywhere).
I love the second picture where he discovered that I was now taking their picture and not pictures of the house. I guess he thought since he was inside he was safe. Not so little man.