White Christmas

For weeks Miri has been waking up and looking outside to see if it has snowed - of course it didn't and she proclaims "its not Christmas yet because we don't have snow". Ryan and I have gone blue in the face trying to explain to her that it hardly ever snows on Christmas so Christmas and snow don't go hand in hand. What do we know!

Christmas eve we saw our first blizzard and Miriam's first white Christmas. As magical as it all was we did have to do things a little differently this year. Normally on Christmas eve we head to church (canceled) go to a party at a friends house (canceled) and get home late, rush around to put together Santa gifts and wrap the few stragglers and are lucky to be in bed by 1:00 a.m. (that did kinda still happen). I was proud of myself, when we were doing our grocery shopping for Christmas morning and the Wilbank's celebration on the 26th, I figured I should probably have something on hand for Christmas eve, just in case. Boy was I ever happpy I did! So we fixed Ryan's traditional Christmas eve meal of Italian Sausage, spaghetti and salad. I even broke out the really good Christmas dishes, table cloth and napkins. I did refrain from putting M in her Christmas dress, we were all too comfy in our jammies! After dinner we allowed Miri to open one gift, she was so excited, after she opened her Poe doll she rolled around with it loving on it squealing in delight!



She then asked if we were going to read stories and sing carols! So we did!! The three of use sat around and read stories out of a Christmas Treasury book we have, The Night Before Christmas, The Christmas Story and a few poems. We also sang a few carols (even Ryan participated! After a brief stop onto the porch to check out the snow, we sent Miri off to bed.

Setting up Santa seems to take forever - no matter how early of a start you have! But we got it done, wrapped the few gifts not yet wrapped and made it to bed by 1:00a.m.



I was prepared to be woken up at the crack of dawn, however my sweet loving perfect little girl didn't wake up until nearly 8:30. She even patiently waited until we were showered and dressed before going down stairs!!! She of course loved her Santa gifts, but kept fixating on the fact that Santa did not eat all the cookies she left him.


Unwrapping our gifts took longer than normal because Miri kept stopping to run over to the window and ask to go out and play in the snow! We did eventually go play, Santa left sleds after all!!



All in all we had a wonderful Christmas, even though we had to rearrange the celebrations with my family and Ryan's family a bit due to the weather. And there is a part of me that wonders if what we were "forced" to do this year for Christmas eve is something we should do every Christmas eve!

The Nutcracker

Yesterday I took Miri to see her very first performance of the Nutcracker. We joined our good friends, Stephanie and Lucy, for this special holiday tradition. When I was a child I remember going nearly every single year to the PAC for this ballet. It was and still is one of the things I look forward to during the holiday season. Tulsa Ballet has changed their version of this ballet, and I personally don't feel it is very kid friendly and (IMO) has lost much of its magic! So instead of going to the "professional" performance we took the girls to the "Children's Nutcracker", this was done by the South Tulsa Children's Ballet Company. All of the dancers are 18 and under, and I thought it was very enjoyable to watch. Miri was completely enchanted by it, in fact by intermission Lucy had decided she was going to be Clara and Miriam had decided to be the Sugar Plum Fairy - so cute!! I loved watching Miri soak in this ballet, seeing it with her was almost like seeing it for the first time. I am considering letting her participate in the production next year as soon as I get it through her little head that she can't start out as the Sugar Plum Fairy!

The Secret Keeper

A few days ago I was looking at the watch I got Ryan for out anniversary. Miri walks into the kitchen, asked who it is for. I explained to her that the gift was for Daddy and that it was a secret until I gave it to him. "OK Momma I won't tell anyone" Fast forward three hours when Ryan got home from work - "Daddy Daddy guess what? We got you a watch!"

Lesson learned - three year olds do NOT make very good secret keepers!!!

Not only is Miri not a good secret keeper she is also VERY observant - there is not much that gets past this kid. So it has been fun (challenging) keeping Christmas surprises still surprises!