Christmas Cheer

I love the holidays. I love the excitement of gifts given and received, I love spending too much time with family and getting way off of baby schedules for the sake of hearing one more story of Christmases before I was born, and I love decorating. I also love holidays celebrated by the whole world that have Jesus smack dab in the middle. Because even if everyone isn't purposefully celebrating His birth, THAT is what the holiday is about so it's impossible to celebrate the season without celebrating Him. Sorry atheists.

JD and I have talked long and hard about what our family Christmas traditions will be now that we have a family of our own. We know that we won't be doing most of the secular things of the season. We want Beatrice to know the Reason for the season and not be obsessed with fat men in red suits so Santa won't be appearing at our house. Don't worry, my brothers and I never had Santa at Christmas and we are all normal, well-adapted adults with only a mild aversion to the fat guy. Plus, without any firsthand experience with him, I wouldn't know how to do Santa. And JD and I can't get past the whole lying to your kid thing. Fun or not, we don't want to lie so when Santa comes up, she'll know that he's not real. Still fun, right? We also decided that every Christmas morning will be spent at our house. Both of our families live in the same town as us so we have always traveled to and fro to be with them. Now that Beatrice is old enough to care about toys, we want her to grow up opening gifts under her own tree in her own living room, then head off to family at lunch time. I love this idea.


With only 42 more days until the Big Day, I have begun preparations for the best Christmas to date. Here are some things that have inspired me to spread the Christmas cheer this year.

Christmas jammies. They are snug, festive, and so cute on skinny, little, diapered bodies.

I love nice towels and these 100% linen kitchen towels from Mud-Pie are fab with the little ribbon tree and ric-rac ornaments.

Prepare yourself to freak out a little at the cuteness you're about to witness. Tree and ornament bloomers from Mud-Pie Baby. Is it weird to have bloomers that match kitchen towels? Yes? Oh, well pretend that I didn't get them to match and then pretend that you don't think we're weird for not doing Santa because you know you're giving me the side-eye right about now. I can feel it.

Because the flamingoes are our favorite animals at the zoo, we had to get this pink, twinkling lawn flamingo.

And just to up the gaudiest house on the block ante, we also bought several of these pink light up candy canes. Know that I will post pictures of the finished decorated exterior once JD quits being a Scrooge and puts all of this stuff out. 

Christmas smocked dresses make me the happiest of all. Beatrice has 3 in the rotation. 

 Purple fuzzy stockings make me smile.

And finally, all of my new Christmas decor inspired me to make this candy cane striped earflap hat with festive pom. Will it up my weird factor if I admit that it came to me in a dream and I woke up and made it? You can buy it in my Etsy shop.

Christmas makes me happy. Cheer like this needs to be passed on.