Category Archives: Christmas Traditions

It’s Christmas morning and Andy and I wait patiently on the couch for the boys to wake up and come running down to see what Santa brought them.  I had expected them to beat me out of bed, but instead they slept a good half hour longer than normal.  Davy was the first to come down, his eyes sparkled and he was soooo happy.  We sent him back up for Matty, there was no way we were going to let him get started without him. 

Santa brought everything on their list this year, except for the Xbox 360.  After all the gifts were opened, we brought out the last one from Andy and I and let Davy open it.  He was so happy.  He jumped up, hugged me, and said “Thank you so much mommy!”  It’s the best feeling ever to see such childhood joy on their faces.  The big gifts this year were: Lego table, Lego’s, Furby’s, Xbox 360, Skylanders, Slushie Machine, Jake pirate ship, Quirkle, Chuggington trains, Scooby Doo house, roller blades, cowboy cap guns, remote control monster truck and boat, metal detector, Matty’s “jeep” 4-wheeler, and Davy’s phone.

Today we decided to keep everything low-key.  Davy is still recovering from the fever and we all need to get a little better before the big day tomorrow.  We watched movies, baked gingerbread men, ate dinner with Dan and Debbie, drove around and looked at lights, threw carrots on the roof and sprinkled the lawn with sparkly oats, left out Santa’s cookies and milk, spent a little time Facetimeing the cousins, and then headed off to bed to read “The Night Before Christmas”.  I can’t wait to see their faces tomorrow morning!

It is the day after Thanksgiving and per our annual Zahn tradition, down went the fall decorations and out came the Christmas ones.  This year we decided to head back over to Sickles High School to check out their trees.  Last year we did a little shopping around and in the end we ended up back at the school.  For the last three years this is where we have purchased our tree.  The tree tents were surprisingly bare and as we were leaving one of the gentleman working the tent said,” We really want your business, sorry we don’t have more trees out we have been slammed today and can’t get them out fast enough.   Please let us unwrap a few, we’ll find one you want.”  So that’s what we did.  He opened up three, we picked out one, and were on our way.  This tree is 8 feet, we thought that it might be a little big, but once we got it home we realized it was smaller than last years….and perfect! 

Originally, we were going to make homemade pizzas and decorate the tree, but it quickly became dark outside so we turned off the lights, made hot chocolate, and put in Polar Express.  On Saturday morning, Matty and I ran to Target for new white lights and then the family decorated the tree when we got back.  Only two broke from little hands….  Not bad, if I do say so myself… 🙂