Holiday Traditions on Fast Track!

I feel like the sleigh Santa uses turned into a locomotive! Since when did Christmas come so fast? Yesterday my grand-daughter announced the imminent arrival of Christmas and I couldn’t believe it. No! I need more time! Santa’s coming in a locomotive!

I’ve been busy trying to fitting in all those holiday traditions. We all have them, the things we remember forever, and look forward to every year. Here’s my list…

Cookie Baking:
Saturday was cookie baking with my grand-daughters Alyssa and Michaela. We made 4 kinds of cookies. What was I thinking? After hours of waiting for the sugar cookie dough to chill, rolling out dough, cleaning up the flour on us and the floor, our favorite was the plain old chocolate chip cookies! The sugar cookies were just OK, so if someone has a GREAT sugar cookie recipe please share it!

Break the Bank:
We save our loose change in the piggy bank during the year and a few days before Christmas we empty the pig, turn in the coins at Safeway and off we go with the girls shopping. The loot came to almost $50 so it was off to get a present for mom and dad. They knew exactly what they wanted, and Target provided gloves, socks, hair brush for mom, CD for dad.

Mini photo albums:
This was a first for us, but it was so much fun I’ll make it a yearly tradition! I printed out photos of both girls that I took during 2008 and each one made a photo album. We used double stick tape to attach the photos (no messy glue fingers allowed), and now the albums sit wrapped under the tree waiting for that special moment when mom and dad open them. Michaela kept saying, “this is so much fun!” It brought back memories and lots of laughs.

And on the 24th we will see the San Francisco Ballet’s version of the Nutcracker! This is our first time to go! At the price of tickets this will not be a yearly tradition, but one I hope we’ll always remember. I have my own little ballerina right here!

Happy Holiday Traditions everyone! Share some of yours!

Hugs,

Anne