…but I didn’t have time to check it twice?! It’s the Holiday Season and there is always so much to do… I call it Making Christmas and If you’ve ever seen The Nightmare Before Christmas you’ll recognize this as one of the songs in the movie. Very much like the characters from the movie, the entire time I am “making Christmas”  I am humming this tune.

I haven’t always celebrated Christmas and while at this point I would like to consider myself a pro at making the magic happen, just like Jack Skellington, I was pretty dazzled by Christmas when I first discovered it, and I still am! The giving, the glitter, the twinkling lights (you know I love the twinkling lights), family, friends, baked goods, christmas stockings…

Making Christmas! Making Christmas! La La La La La La La La!

This year’s holiday card photo was taken in Lisbon, Portugal in the Belem neighborhood. As soon as I saw this heart sculpture I knew this would be our holiday photo!

Like many families we visit Santa at our local mall every year. Over the years we’ve developed a simple strategy to avoid the long lines: 1) We go early in the season 2) We get in line about 10 minutes before Santa comes back from his lunch break! This year, there were only three families in line ahead of us and I got not only this nice photo with Santa, but a pretty nice one without him too! Too bad I didn’t need a holiday card pic! I love to take out all the photos from previous years and lay them all in a row. It’s so fun seeing how much the kids have grown! I’m grateful to Simon for being such a good sport!

Because I already had the photo I was able to order our cards earlier than normal this year… I was even able to include the Santa photos in with the family holiday cards. I was so excited to find this travel design on the Minted website!

We have a lot of ornaments and  I want to find the perfect tree to display them. I’m not great at this, so Tim chooses for me. He’s pretty good at it!  This year we had a tough time finding a tree and I am guessing its because of the drought we are having here in California. We went to a number of places before finding “the one”.

Tim and I have been collecting ornaments from our travels for the past 18 years! One of my favorite Christmas activities is taking them out of their boxes. Don’t laugh, but its like greeting old friends. There are the wedding ornaments my sister gave me when we got engaged, the snowflakes I gave Tim when we were dating, and of course the many ornaments we’ve picked up from around the world! This year we added a number of beautiful memories from our trips to New Orleans, Portugal, Spain, England and Disneyland! I put together a mini tree to showcase all the new ones!

When holidays collide! I grew up celebrating Chanukah, but hadn’t done so in many years. Last year we decided to host a Chanukah Party and it was big success. Year number two cemented the deal! Chanukah is now an official part of our holiday season! Latkes anyone!

I’m lumping shopping, wrapping and holiday specials together, because I have to admit I jumped on the online shopping bandwagon this year. With the exception of a few items, almost everything was purchased online making me more available to spend time with the boys.

I realized my little one had never seen The Nightmare Before Christmas. He really enjoyed it and so did the rest of us. Its still just as fabulous as ever! I shopped and wrapped while watching holiday specials. Thank you ABC Family!

Tis the season for party dresses, glitter, dancing…There’s no better way to celebrate the holidays than spending time with friends and family. Lucky for us we had lots of fun opportunities to celebrate!

Okay, we didn’t get to do this project, but I had every intention of making it happen! We ran out of time. Maybe next year?

One word: Instacart. Yep, I did all my holiday grocery shopping online this year and I loved it! Not sure what time it saved me, since we didn’t get to the craft… But not dragging all those groceries into the house was a nice bonus.

Making cookies for Santa is one of my absolute favorite Christmas activities! There are certain things that just have to happen, like hearing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and making Santa’s Cookies. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without them! Also, Santa is very particular about “her” cookies!

Whether it’s going for a run, seeing a movie or dinner with the girls building in some time for myself is definitely on my list!

Of course we always take a photo in front of the tree. The boys are usually wearing matching pjs which they like to stay in all day on Christmas!  This year we took the picture on Christmas Eve. Check!

It’s Christmas Eve and I’ve finally made it to the end of my list… As you can see there are still a few unchecked boxes. I guess relaxing will have to be first on my list of Things To Do Tomorrow…  Merry Christmas!