Friday, December 2, 2011

Christmas is Coming!

We've been working diligently on Christmas here at the Bandermann house!  Our trees are up and the ornaments are hung.  Christmas this year will be like no other.  Ansley is at such a fun age...she really seems to get what Christmas is all about (whether she really does or not....I'm not sure. We can dream right?!). 
Ansley was such a great help this year as we decorated the trees.  She loved to put in the glittery springs and insisted on hanging most of the ornaments.  Our tree is somewhat Dr. Suess-like this year with some of our branches having 3 ornaments on them and drooping considerably.  She would get kind of stuck in one area and couldn't move away from it.  But I wouldn't change it for a second...it was Ansley's little masterpiece.  Perfect.  About midway through decorating the tree she said "Hey, where's baby Jesus?" We hadn't got our Nativity set out quite yet, but she was adamant about getting baby Jesus out.  So we did.  Unfortunately with that, came strict instructions that she was NOT to play with baby Jesus (as we were opening the nativity this year we remembered that she had accidently knocked the camel off the table last year.  We have a headless camel now, so we decided to forego him this year and give her a little pep talk about the importance of this particular nativity set.  At this point, it was VERY clear our need for a PLAY nativity at our house for her! Stat.  More on that later.   
Here she is diligently putting the ornaments up
And glittery springs 
Precious.
Loving the tree business this year! 
       
Sunday we went to the Christmas Parade of Lights for our annual kickoff to the Christmas season.  I love going because it really gets me to transition from Thanksgiving into the Christmas holiday spirit.  Lynwood does a float every year and usually has the youth praise band singing on it.  This year was no exception...they were rocking out to "God of This City" as they passed the street we were on...one of my favorites!  Ansley was excited about the candy she got to eat, tootsie rolls were a hit and she loved seeing all the pretty lights. 
After the parade was over and we were gathering our stuff up to walk back to the car, Ansley asked...."where's baby Jesus, Mommy?"  We had gotten there a little late and missed some of the floats (I'm sure Jesus made some of them :)), but she was really concerned by the lack of Jesus or that she hadn't seen him, I should say.  Her next comment was "Mom , we gotta go home and see Jesus!!" (and no, I'm not a fan of her calling me mom.  I'm not sure what happened to mommy!).  So we loaded up and went to Pamaw and Pappaw's where there were LOTS of baby Jesus' to play with and warm soup to eat!

Pam mentioned that night that she was going to get Ansley and Brynn a nativity set.  I was of course thrilled!  I couldn't wait for Ansley to get it...I knew she would love to play with it and she had nearly been talking about it non-stop for a week (and I was tired of reminding her about the NO PLAYING rule with our nativity at home)!  Wednesday night after choir we went to Ryan and Whitney's for Pamaw and Pappaw to give Brynn and Ansley their special gifts.  They loved them (Brynn wasn't quite as thrilled as Ansley)!
 She sees that it's a nativity!
And then she spots JESUS! 
And now life is complete!  Thank you Pamaw and Pappaw! 
Christmas this year is already so exciting! I can't wait for all the upcoming events! 

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