There aren't 12 days of Christmas in our house. There are 25. Starting December 1st I began the advent calendar with Rachel again this year. And a new tradition this year is the Elf on the Shelf.
Rachel named our elf Rudy. According to the book, Rudy goes to see Santa each night to report on whether Rachel and Rebecca have been naughty or nice. Then when he returns, he hides in a new place in the house to watch them for another day. So far Rudy has hidden on the mantle, on the kitchen windowsill, in the chandelier, in the Christmas tree, and even in the bathroom, among other places. Rachel's pretty good at spotting him and laughs at every new hiding place. She even talks to him and tells him what she wants for Christmas so he'll tell Santa.
To say Rachel is excited about these traditions is a huge understatement. Every morning is like Christmas morning at our house. She wakes up well before her clock turns green, anticipating going downstairs to find where the elf is hiding and then opening the door of the advent calendar. For the first several days she kept coming in to ask if she could get up yet. After several days of this, she got in trouble, so now she stays in bed until 7:00, and then RUNS into my room yelling, "Mommy! Mommy! My clock is green! Let's go downstairs and find Rudy and open the door!"
Her favorite advent calendar activities are crafts, so I've tried to include as many of those as I can (I think I've purchased just about every $1-2 Christmas craft kit I've found at Joanns, Michaels, and Target!). Some of the other things we've done, besides crafts, are decorating the Christmas tree, going to see Santa, going to watch the movie, Tangled, at the theater, making gingerbread cookies with Grandma, and reading new Christmas books. She loves it all and it's made the month of December FLY by even faster than usual.
Another fun thing coming up is that my husband surprised Rachel and me with tickets to see The Nutcracker ballet next week. I've never been, and have always wanted to go, and a couple of years ago I mentioned to him that I wanted to take Rachel when she was older and could enjoy it. So he remembered that and completely surprised me! Rachel's reaction to the surprise was quite comical. I told her we were going to get dressed up, just Mommy and Rachel, and go to The Nutcracker ballet on the stage. She evidently misunderstood what I said, and thought that we were going to don her dress up clothes and go DANCE the ballet on the stage. She started crying when she realized that we weren't going to be doing the dancing. In trying to explain it I said, "But Mommy doesn't know how to do ballet. These ladies have been taking ballet lessons for many, many years, so they're going to do the dancing." Her reply (in tears): "But I took ballet lessons and know how to do ballet! I can do it. I know how!" At any rate, later that day she saw a commercial on TV while my husband was watching football, which advertised the show. They showed some clips of the dancers on the stage, and she got really excited and finally seemed to understand that we would be in the audience watching those dancers. She's seen the commercial a couple of times since then and each time she gets more excited. Now let's hope she can stay quiet (and stay awake--it'll be past her bedtime!) during the show!
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