Holiday Happenings

I guess that with all the holidays out of the way, I can get back to blogging and updating everyone on everything that's been going on. We cut back on a lot of activities this year, but it still seemed like it was "go, go, go" for the entire holiday season from Thanksgiving to New Year's. I was very pleased at how well I paced myself to get things done--from putting up the decorations, to working on Christmas cards, making homemade gifts, wrapping presents, and so forth. I usually get very stressed out, but that didn't happen this year. We were able to focus on the Savior as well, and had some activities to help us. For Family Home Evening one night, we wrote letters to Baby Jesus and told Him the gifts we were going to give him for 2009. Kind of like setting goals or New Year's resolutions, except it was for the Savior and not for ourselves.

So, without further ado, here are pictures of the activities we did for the 2008 holiday season (I apologize for the huge number of pictures!):

Downtown Goldsboro had an official Christmas lighting party just before Thanksgiving. So we went and partook of lots of free activities. We first stood in line to see Santa Claus. The Grinch made an appearance and surprised all of us! Our niece Meagan hid behind me because she is rather afraid of the Grinch. Daniel sat on Santa's lap but Raelee refused to get near him. She still got a candy cane from Santa and decided to start eating it when I wasn't looking (hence the colored drool on the outside of her mouth in the picture above). The kids made food for Santa's reindeer (made from oatmeal & a special glitter to help the reindeer fly). We had hot chocolate and listened to carolers. They had free horse-drawn trolley rides, but the line was very long. And since the trolley rides would continue each Tuesday evening until Christmas, we decided to come back another day to do that.

We took a family picture to include in our annual Christmas card. Little did I know how difficult it would be to get everyone to keep their eyes open, hold still & smile at the same time!

We went to Meadow, NC, to see the Meadow Lights. This has become an annual tradition for us. There's a farm outside of Meadow (a town that you will certainly miss if you blink!). The have put up all sorts of lights in one of the fields and it has become quite a production. For $2 a person, you can ride a train throughout the field of lights. They also have a small store that sells homemade and old-fashioned candies and chocolates. You can buy hot chocolate and visit Santa as well. We always ride the train, and this year we took the kids into the store and bought a couple bags of home-made gum drops. The kids loved it. Our friends, Ginny & Rob White and their kids went with us.



I had never heard of the Christmas parade in Goldsboro until Daniel's preschool sent home a flyer indicating that the preschool kids could sign up to be on a float in the parade. I was so excited that Daniel could participate in a parade, so of course I had to sign him up! The theme of the parade was "Charlie Brown Christmas" so the kids put on Snoopy ears and wore Santa hats. Here's Daniel on the float with his cousins Meagan & Ashley. Raelee got a band stix & a stuffed doggie from Aaron's rental company. One of the employees handed them to her while we were walking to find a spot on the parade route. This was the first parade for the kids, and I felt very nostalgic remembering my days in junior high and high school. I was in the band and played the clarinet, and I was in the rifle corps my sophomore, junior & senior years of high school, so I thoroughly enjoyed the parade this year.



Daniel's preschool had a Christmas program. The theme was Fairyland Nativity. The Kindergarteners dressed up as fairy tale characters (The Big Bad Wolf, Jack & the Beanstalk, etc.) and these fairy tale characters re-enacted the Nativity from Luke II. Daniel's preschool class was dressed as the sheperds. I wasn't sitting in a very good spot, unfortunately, and the little girl in front of him was a sheep with a very big head-dress that kept covering Daniel's face each time I tried to take a picture. But I was so proud of him and Daniel sang so well!

The next event was Daniel's preschool class Christmas party. I decided to take a 1/2 day vacation from work so I could attend. There was sliced fruit, sandwiches, Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets, and pretzels. Daniel sat by his cousin Ashley and ate to his heart's content. I got a picture of his "stocking"--I thought it looked so cute!

My Grandma Heinrich flew out here to visit us for a week. It was so good to see her. Raelee met her for the first time. Daniel was about 16 months old when he last saw her. I was so pleased that both kids bonded quickly with their Great Grandma. We went to the free horse-drawn trolley rides in downtown Goldsboro. It was very cold that evening. The line was much smaller than when we went to the downtown Christmas lighting party, and we didn't mind the cold weather.

That's pretty much everything that occurred prior to Christmas Eve. I'm worn out trying to get this post done. Ever since I upgraded Internet Explorer, I can only upload one picture at a time to Blogger, so it takes a long time. I'll do another post later to show pictures of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and everything that occurred post-Christmas. Later, gator!