It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmas in Texas is so confusing.  Do you wear a stocking hat?  Do you wear sandals?

Both

We had our annual Advent workshop after church the first Sunday of Advent.  We forgot our wreath frame, so we took our supplies home, but Ruby happily put together the Woods' wreath for them!  They are family friends, in our small group with three girls under five, so they were grateful for her help. Ada helped out by chasing Winnie (3) around the church and holding Ellie (8 months).  She's always been a sweet caretaker.  We finished up decorating our house and Ruby put our wreath together as well.  We light our candles each night at dinner and read the Christmas story, adding one verse each night.  The girls also put up one character on our Little People cloth Advent calendar each morning, open their chocolate calendar, and put together a piece of their Lego calendar from Gaga and Grandpa!  Oh yeah, the Nelsons know how to party do Advent!

This picture is actually pretty deceiving because Ruby pretty much made the wreath by herself!

Ada loves babies!

We have had a few Christmas fails already.  St. Nicholas was a bit late with the traditional Christmas jammies (even though I'm sure he ordered them at least 3 weeks in advance).  The girls were pretty happy with their personal Christmas trees in place of the PJ's. And St. Nick came through a few nights later.

St. Nicholas Day surprises

Happy to finally have our new Christmas PJ's

Our second fail is our hot mess of lights outside.  The first year we moved into our house, I went out and bought a bunch of outdoor Christmas lights.  Steve and I have always loved the big old fashion, real glass, true color lights.  Of course, you can't find them anywhere though.  So, I ended up getting white lights and adding in some red and green bulbs.  They were "meh".  Shortly after Christmas that year, Steve discovered a box in the attic with several strings of the old fashion lights we love- score!  We've since strung the white lights in our backyard over the patio that we enjoy year round.  I hung the old glass lights last year after throwing out a bunch of broken and dead bulbs.  We ended up with four working strings and one string that only had about five working bulbs.  Not a lot, but I was able to line the roof line along the front and around the garage door on the side.  I hung the lights the same way this year.  And then I plugged them in and one string wouldn't light up.  So Steve and I took it down, took the bulbs off and used them on that nearly empty string.  We put that string back up in it's place.  Perfect.  For about 5 days.  Then the whole front of the house remained dark.  So now we are the house with one random part of the house with lights.  I just don't think we have the time or energy to take them all down and use our other "new" lights so it is what it is this year.  I think this may be the official end of the cool old glass lights.  (Insert sad face emoji here.)


Ruby had a Christmas concert the first week of November at a local holiday fair.  It was short and sweet, and I'm so glad I work part time so I can attend these things in the middle of a morning!

Ruby Christmas Concert 2017 from Steve Nelson on Vimeo.


You may have seen on the news that central and southern Texas got snow one day last week, even a few inches just south of us.  We only got a couple flurries as school was getting out that afternoon, but when you're in Texas you take what you can get.  So you better believe we ran around outside and tried to catch some on our tongue!  If you don't blink you *might* be able to spot a few flakes!

Proof it really did "snow"

Last weekend the girls and Steve did a fun run at their school on Saturday and I took them to a Christmas dance recital on Sunday.  We even got to see Santa when we spotted him downtown at the night farmer's market.  There was zero line so the girls marched in and told them what they are wishing for.  Ruby wants a hover board and a neck pillow!  Ada wants Oonies and a neck pillow!

It was pretty cold that night so we bundled up and put on layers.  I'm really loving the ruffle capris over the leggings.  Girls got style.

We also made our "traditional" gingerbread house.  I'm not sure exactly how this has become a tradition, it's not my fav, but the girls sure look forward to eating it!

Last night we packed some cookies after dinner and went for a drive to see the lights around town.  Two of the houses we visited are going to be on that Christmas Light Fight show!  Pretty amazing, especially considering the sad, sad lights at the Nelson house.

In Texas, you get out of the car and walk around the light displays!

Tonight we are going to see The Best Christmas Pageant Ever at the Waco Civic Theater.  The girls have school all week next week with a half day on Friday.  I'll be there several afternoons volunteering and helping with their Christmas parties.  I'm so glad my semester is done early December so I have time to shop, bake, decorate, and enjoy all of the festivities!

cozy