Madeline Rose: Welcome Christmas Season!

Maddy and Rosie in Christmas PJs

As everyone knows, the Christmas season is my favorite time of year, and sharing this love with Maddy makes me very happy! Maddy and Rosie even have matching Christmas Jammies this year!!! : )

When we returned from Thanksgiving with the DeCock family, we spent the rest of the weekend "putting up Christmas". Maddy and I did a lot of the decorating together, and she's become quite skilled at putting up the window gel-clings. She likes making stories with them, so they tend to all be grouped very close together.

Simi Newmi, our Christmas Elf, also has returned to our home, keeping an eye on Maddy and reporting back to Santa each night. In the morning Maddy looks for him (or her, not sure which) and lets me and Steve know the new spot. Simi Newmi is an Elf on a Shelf character, so there's one big rule - no one can touch him, or he may lose his Christmas magic. Usually he's up pretty high which lessens temptation to touch. He also sometimes gets into trouble or makes a mess. Those mornings Maddy laughs a lot!

We celebrate St. Nick's day by Maddy putting out her shoes and St. Nick leaves one small gift. This year it was a stuffed toy - a little puppy in a Christmas hat and scarf. Maddy named her Brownie.

We also held our annual Christmas Cookie Party, scaled back a bit this year. We only made the cut-out cookies for the kids to decorate, and Haystacks (we discovered this was a cookie type our friend Eric could enjoy even with his multiple allergies - yay!). Our invitation invited our friends to bring their own cookies this year, or an appetizer, and we had plenty of cookies to enjoy!

We also collected food and donations for the food shelf. We collected a big bag of canned goods as well as $50.00! Maddy herself contributed $7.00, really wanting to help other people too. This year we donated the food and money to the Food Program that our friends Christy and Mandy work with at Gilbert School.

We will be spending Christmas in Minnesota this year, splitting time between the Sebastian Family in Knife River and the Faust Family in the Twin Cities area. Looking forward to lots of fun and family time! Maddy is so excited to see all her cousins!