Of course it all starts with the tree. We have a lovely tree with beautiful decorations & lots of flickering little lights. I'm glad to report that @ 18 months you LOVE them too. You coo every night when we switch on the ligths & you've redecorated the entire bottom part of the tree & ofcourse there was no stopping you when you discovered that some of the decorations are actually edible! Needless to say - none of the edible little chocolate decorations are left on the tree.
Naturally no decently decorated tree goes without matching christmas socks. For a lack of a chimney we've put them on our bookshelve & you stand there admiring them like their art work displayed in the Louvre.
One of my favourite things at christmas time is the music. I know, I know.. It's cheesy! But I love it! In fact, every year I add to my collection of christmas cd's. Much to your dad's disgust! I play them every chance I get & sing along to the tune of christmas. It's just heavenly.
Then there's Ouma Malie's oats cookies. As a child the baking of those cookies announced that christmas was on it's way and it's a tradition that I've kept alive, one that I hope to pass on. You helped bake them this year, as much as an 18 month old can assist in baking.. I suppose your real assistance will be with the eating part - seems you've got no issues with the taste or texture of these particular cookies. Ouma Malie would have been proud baby girl!
Where's the gifts you ask? Well, apart from the one's that you've already opened.. the others are under our tree. You've been promised a good pakkie slaai if you open another one of them but you seem content with what you've gotten so far & have been making us pretend tea in your little pink tea cups all week. The rest of your pressies will be packed in when we leave for holiday & you can open them on christmas morning. Oh, I look forward to seeing your little face when you open them!
There is a book - my favourite one for this season but you don't seem to mind too much that we're reading it every night. It tells the real story of christmas, complete with carols & nursery rhymes, poems & everything christmas. We read from it each night, sing & dance - and yes even daddy sings.
I hope that you will love this time of year as much as I do, growing up & when you have a family of your own. But more importantly I pray that you will understand why we celebrate this time of year. You see, allthough it's not literally Jesus' birthday, its the time of year when we celebrate that he came to earth for us. It's a time where we celbrate having a Godly father that loves us.
Merry christmas baby girl. Mommy loves you! xx
