It's Beginning to Feel a Little Like Christmas

We have been extremely busy this December (more about that in another post to come one day soon), and so it hasn't felt very Christmas-y.  This week though John and I agreed that "it's beginning to feel -a little- like Christmas." 

About a week ago I attended my friend Stephanie's annual Cookie Exchange.  We had a great time socializing and trying out all the delicious cookies people had brought!  Here's a picture of our group at the party!

One of our family traditions here in Huntsville has been to drive through the Botanical Garden's Galaxy of Lights every year.  It's a path over a mile long of different Christmas displays.  You drive incredibly slow so we let Dawson get out of his seat and ride in the front seat with us.  He loved the light displays.  This is the look on his face when we entered the Galaxy of lights.  :)

He has not stopped talking about the Galaxy.  When you ask him what his favorite light display was he says, "I like the penguin, nutcracker, tree, Santa, butterfly, other penguin, dino, reindeer...."  And he continues to list them on and on!  Dawson also thought it was special to get to ride with me in the front seat.

Monday night we visited Santa's Village for the first time.  It's in Downtown Huntsville at the Constitution Village.  While there we listened to carolers sing Christmas songs, saw two real reindeer (one of Dawson's favorite parts!), saw Mrs. Claus and elves, enjoyed playing in the snow that they blew every 20 minutes (another favorite part for Dawson), made an ornament, decorated a gingerbread cookie-which Dawson ate almost immediately, and saw Frosty, a penguin, and a Gingerbread Man (probably the very favorite part).  Of course, Santa was there too!  Dawson had a blast a Santa's Village.  It was really crowded but it was a good night to go since it wasn't too cold to be outside for a couple of hours.  Yesterday John said that holidays are so much more fun with Dawson than when it was just the two of us, and I could not agree more!  I love to see how excited Dawson gets over seeing Christmas lights or someone dressed in a Gingerbread Man costume!  The most talked about part of the night was definitely the characters.  No matter where we go if there's someone in costume, Dawson absolutely cannot get enough.  After we had taken more than our fair amount of time visiting with the penguin, Dawson walked around say, "Penguin, come back here please!  Where are you, Penguin?!"  Here are the pictures from Santa's Village.

Above:  John and Dawson at the entrance.

(None of the pictures are wonderful since

they were all taken outside in the dark.)

First we met Frosty and loved him!

Then we were even happier when

we saw this penguin with a bow tie to talk to!

Making an ornament!

Dawson running through the snow

flurries that were falling, although it's

difficult to see them in the picture.

One of the reindeer.

Dawson pretending to be a snowman.

Dawson absolutely loves Nutcrackers, and

he was excited to see this one to stand by.

Our family at Santa's Village.

Santa was there!

Dawson poking his head through

the Christmas tree.

Dawson, an elf, and the Gingerbread Man.

On another note-On Saturday Dawson attended his friend Jude's 3rd birthday party.  I had to remember him going to Jude's 1st birthday party when Dawson was only 6 months old and had just learned to sit up, and then last year at Jude's 2nd birthday Dawson played and had a blast.  This year, I told Dawson on Monday that on Saturday he would get to go to Jude's birthday party. This was a mistake because several times every day leading up to the party, Dawson would ask if it was time to go to Jude's.  I would tell him no, and then he would tell me that Jude's party was on Saturday.  Then Dawson would sing Happy Birthday to Jude.  We probably sang Happy Birthday to Jude at least 20 times leading up to the day of the party.  On Saturday Dawson was thrilled to go to the party, and he had a blast playing with Jude and his other friends!  The picture above is Dawson and birthday boy Jude who was playing dress-up.  Dawson had more fun than is captured from the expression on his face in the photo-I know because he's talked about Jude's party every day!