An Early Makeshift Christmas

With traveling to Florida for Christmas on the 19th for a week and moving on the 28th, the day after we come back from the trip (code word for insane! :)), we opted not to decorate the house this year for Christmas or even to get a tree. And this morning we actually decided to do our own personal makeshift Christmas celebration for our immediate family since we wanted to do something relaxing on a weekend and this is the last one before we leave for FL on Friday. So, Merry Christmas from the Martins...11 days early.

As I was thinking about getting out all of the gifts last night to place in our empty, box-ridden family room, I had a sudden brainstorm: we have a decorative tree in our living room that we keep lights on at all times to add some elegance when we have a party. So, voila! - our Charlie Brown Christmas Ficus was born! :) Here's our place all decked out for the day last night after Santa stopped in early:



The reaction to my makeshift Christmas celebration? Well, the boys were amazed by the lights even if we do not have a true Christmas evergreen this year...and they had a fun time opening their gifts and spending time with Mommy and Daddy even if we were surrounded by boxes on all sides. Here they are with some of their favorite gifts:

Daddy picked out this new Leap Frog toy for Nate. He loves to spin things so this giant wheel was a big hit (with the big brother as well!).

Here's Ben modeling his new car slippers! Whoa!! These stayed on his feet all day long...

The boys each got some smaller gifts and also one "big" gift. Here they each are with their big gifts. Ben got the Parents Magazine Raise the Roof Barn, which he loved!! It has tons of wooden animals, the roof comes apart, the doors open and close, there are food pellets to give to the animals through a special chute mechanism. Just up our little engineer's alley to try to figure out how this thing works.

Nate got the Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Home, which is so much fun. Ben always loved it whenever we'd go to people's houses who have it and Nate is the perfect age for it now. He actually sat there and played with it for about 20 minutes before noticing that I was not right next to him (a recent dilemma in his 9-month-old world of Separation Anxiety).

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and look forward to seeing both sides of our family, one over the actual holiday and the other immediately afterwards. We'll take lots more photos, but I had to post these - what other kids get to request a special early stop from Santa? :)