Christmas Eve Day - 2010

Christmas is finally here! This holiday season has been an exciting one with the boys. This is our third Christmas as a family but this is the first Christmas in which the boys joined in on the excitement that comes with the holiday season. The boys know about Santa Claus and were excited about Christmas coming. Their wish lists this year were short and I am confident we were able to fulfill every wish. When we ask the boys what they wanted for Christmas, their reply was either "presents" or "toys." I think we have that covered!

To help build the excitement, on Thanksgiving, our family was joined by our very own scout elf. A scout elf is works directly for Santa Claus and joins a family during the holiday season to keep an eye on all the girls and boys. The scout elf returns home to the North Pole each night and reports his observations directly to Santa. This helps Santa make a decision about who belongs on the "Naughty or Nice" list. Each night, the scout elf returns and finds a new spot in the house to 'observe' every one's behavior for the day.

When the elf first joins a family, the family is charged with naming the elf. After Thanksgiving, we met our elf for the first time. The boys' suggestions for our elf's name were either "Santa" or "Presents." Hmmmm, clearly they understand the 'true' meaning of Christmas already. Until we found the right name, we called him "Mr. Elf." On Thanksgiving, the Florida State Seminoles defeated the University of Florida Gators quite convincingly, yay! This inspired us to name our family elf, NOLIE! Pronounced - Semi-"NOLIE."

The boys enjoyed finding Nolie each morning and saying goodnight to Nolie. Nolie was able to discover a new spot in the house each night. It's a good thing that Nolie is not allergic to dust because some of the high shelves (top of cabinets, top of entertainment center, etc) do not get a lot of visitors or attention. Nolie also helped keep Santa informed about our Christmas destination. When we left for Grandma's house, we were worried that we would not see Nolie again. However, when we arrived, we noticed that Nolie had already arrived. Nolie was able to report our Christmas location to Santa so he would know where to deliver the gifts for the boys... if they ended up on the Nice list... hmmmmm?!?

Christmas Eve became the longest day ever recorded in Darnell boys history. We did not bring any toys with us as we knew they would be leaving with a couple (ha). Now that the boys understand they get presents on Christmas and they knew those beautifully wrapped packages were presents, in their little minds, every box under the tree was for them! Christmas Eve day was a day filled with temptations. They only unwrapped a few gifts and the gift bags were extremely vulnerable. We tried to keep the boys distracted with some activities.

First, we let the boys pick a movie from Grandma's movie collection. Their selection, The Jungle Book. This is the scene on Christmas Eve day of the boys watching their movie....

The movie distracted the boys for a little while but those gifts must have been screaming their names! They wanted to open those presents all day but we just kept telling them to be patient. Poor guys!

During the movie, Daddy made some cookies. After the movie, we all joined Daddy in the kitchen to decorate the cookies. We had some decorating supplies left over from my company Christmas party so we had plenty of icing and sprinkles to make some Christmas cookies for the Christmas Eve celebration.

The boys did a good job at decorating. Daddy and I would apply the primary icing and the boys would apply the details. We had a great time! Andrew...

Jared and Mommy...

The sprinkles.... oh, the sprinkles! We had about a 50% success rate at getting the sprinkles on the cookies. About 50% ended up on the cookies and 50% ended up on the floor....

Mommy and the boys...

Unlike the sprinkles, we were pretty good at getting the icing onto the cookies. However, we were not at 100%. Come on, you didn't really expect 2 year olds to decorate cookies without tasting the supplies...

Andrew approves! While, this behavior is expected from toddlers, you would think that an adult would be more responsible. Nope, the boys learn this behavior from their father; almost caught in the act...

Andrew was certainly not alone in his quality control activities. Jared also joined in on the act...

Silly Jared, sprinkles too???

Wes joins in on the fun...

I love this face! "Huh, what, no, not me, I didn't, I mean, Do you think I would... ok, I can explain?"

Grandma was at the store during our cookie decorating activity. This is a good thing because this was a MESSY activity! The sprinkles were everywhere. Near the end of our good time, the boys were not even trying to get the sprinkles on the cookies...

We thought the cookie supply would never end but we made it through all of the cookies. As you can see in these pictures, Andrew felt it was important to also taste test the final product...

Jared, our little perfectionist, tried to organize the cookies so we could fit at least one more on there...

Some of the finished products...

Some more...

Once we finished the final cookie, Daddy and I decided to divide and conquer. He took the boys straight to the bath tub and I went to work on cleaning the kitchen. My hopes of cleaning the kitchen (and the 1,000,000 sprinkles) before Grandma arrived home from the store where dashed when she arrived home. She remained calm but immediately stepped in to help me clean the kitchen. I hope Grandma remains in good spirits about the mess when she is still finding sprinkles in her kitchen next Thanksgiving.

We had a fun, exciting, frustrating but most importantly memorable time decorating cookies with the boys on Christmas Eve. We served these cookies to the Christmas Eve guests. We informed all of the guests that these were prepared by three 2 year olds; so, eat at your own risk! They were a big hit and there was only about three left at the end of the evening. Daddy said it best when he commented "there is not a cookie in the bunch that is not covered in the boys' DNA." I hope any of the guests that see the 'behind the scenes' photos in this post are still comfortable with their decision to eat these cookies.

After their baths, the boys went up to take their naps. It was finally time for a little relaxation before the real Christmas Eve celebration begins.

Take care,