Isley Family Life: December 2012: Part II (Christmas Festivities!)

Throughout December, we really enjoyed celebrating Advent as a family. It was the first liturgical season that Julia was old enough to really enter into in any sort of meaningful way. We have always tried to include her in our family prayer life, sometimes more successfully than others (I remember Aaron and I trying to read a spiritual book during dinner each night during Lent when she was mere months old and about pulling out my hair some nights trying to read aloud/pay attention, eat, attend to a baby needing attention... = craziness), but this was the first season she herself could sense something was different and she was excited to participate. Every evening, we would dim the overhead lights, light the candles on the Advent wreath, pray together, read a Jesse tree Scripture while Julia colored a corresponding picture, sing O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and, finally, Julia would enthusiastically blow out the Advent candles. It was a beautiful time of family prayer and preparation for Jesus' coming.

Of course, even though we were trying to celebrate Advent, we did take advantage of some of the Christmas festivities around town during December ;-)

We went to the local library to the Christmas story time and Santa visit.

So anxious to meet Santa!

Julia enjoyed meeting Santa one evening at the library!

We went to a local art museum for their festival of trees and family art day.

So many different type of Christmas trees!

Making a snowman Christmas ornament!

There were some pretty cool gingerbread houses!

We went to see the lights at a local Bible college, during the Christmas season, actually. It was sometime in late December. Julia loved it! (Almost as much as last year... haha!)

Julia loved our big new Christmas tree that my parents gave us for one of our Christmas presents! I didn't think to get a good photo of it after it was decorated, but it is visible in the background of some of the photos of Julia's birthday party. It's huge and beautiful! We didn't want our sad, little Charlie Brown-esque Christmas tree from our apartment to go to waste, though... so we put it in Julia's room! She LOVED having a tree in her room - so magical!

The new tree, prior to being decorated. So lush and tall and majestic. We honestly wanted to keep it up year round.

Julia loves the little tree in her bedroom!

Isn't Christmas magical? I used to love to lie under the lit tree in the dark to see the shadows of leaves on the walls and ceilings. Julia was similarly enchanted.

We also had some fun during the Christmas season decorating gingerbread houses. Unfortunately, I thought the packet of powder for making the frosting was pure powdered sugar... and it wasn't. Julia was eating it, getting it all over her face and hands, etc. We noticed she was starting to get hives on her face and checked the ingredient label on the packet... and egg white was an ingredient. Poor Julia. We got her good and cleaned off, gave her some benadryl, and distracted her with marshmallows.

The next morning was Mary-Claire's baptism. Aaron and I were getting ready for mass, apparently being great parents as our momentarily unsupervised daughter climbed onto the kitchen table and started eating frosting off the gingerbread houses. So, we stripped her down, bathed her, got her dressed again... and were late for mass.

Bad godparents. Bad.

Oh, food allergies.... *Sigh*