Santa, Gingerbread and Christmas Tree

There was quite a bit of fun in the Wagner household in preparation for Christmas. There was a party or two, Christmas cookie baking, Santa visits, Christmas decorating, and hopes for a wonderful season. What fun it was to have a three and a half year old this year. He was so much more interested and excited for everything we did. I loved witnessing his innocent joy and I look forward to this in Gabe in a few years. 

At Aunt Janet and Uncle Greg's Christmas party, one of the activities was a gingerbread decorating contest. Charlie completed our submission. He was very serious for this event. Although we were not chosen as winners, we sure loved our gingerbread man!

 Doesn't everyone decorate their Christmas tree without pants on? As you can see, that was the clothing choice for Charlie. He loved decorating our home. We had to take extra care to hang soft ornaments at the bottom. This year we had a very interested crawler in the house. I think we are at a count of three or four broken ornaments. Gabe is a big fan of grabbing the globe ornaments. Most are quite fragile.

I couldn't get Charlie to look at me while at the Christmas tree lot. He was way to interested in the man with the chain saw. I do get it, chain saws are much more interesting than mom taking a picture! 

 I found a recipe online for ornaments. We decided to tackle ornament making. This became a two day project as I had to bake the ornaments for 6 hours. However, we had lots of fun, especially in the painting. A funny story in connection to these ornaments. I asked Charlie to grab a couple ornaments to take to Spokane with us for Christmas. He wanted to bring a couple to Nonnie and Boppa. I didn't pay much attention to what he grabbed. When we arrived in Spokane and he went to give his ornaments away, I noticed that he picked two that I painted. Not exactly the gift to the grandparents I had planned.

 The kids all sang and waited for Santa to arrive at Janet and Greg's Christmas party. Charlie had already sat on Santa's lap and told him that he wanted an airplane. He and dad talked over this visit and decided that Santa needed to be told to bring Charlie's presents to Spokane. So, that is what he is doing in the photo below. Charlie must have done an excellent job because Santa did find him in Spokane!

We had a small cookie baking party before Christmas. Here is a photo of two cousins decorating sugar cookies. Our son loaded each cookie with as many sprinkles as he could. There were piles and piles of sprinkles.