Christmas Bucket List

Happy Friday! We've been into the Christmas spirit for a while now but I couldn't bring myself to schedule too many holiday activities until December actually started.  Tatum is at a great age for things this year and already seems to be very into things - especially turning on the Christmas trees each night.

We have so many great traditions, I feel like we add in new ones each year and I'm also excited for a few new ones this year and ones we haven't done in a little while.

Christmas Tree, Christmas Cards, Movies & Decorations:
We've already gotten to a bunch of these.  Our real Christmas tree was our last piece of decorating - we love the activity of getting a real tree but decided we're going to get a fake one to put in our foyer where we usually do the real one.  I do still want to do a real one next year just smaller and for another room.  Christmas cards are in the mail, the house is decorated and unlike past years we started Christmas movie watching much earlier this year and it's nice spacing them out.

Christmas Lights Night:
I can't remember last year if we had time for this or not but it's one of my favorite nights.  We always try to do it closer to Christmas though so evenings to do it can become scarce.  Tatum seems to be really into lights this year so I think he'll like driving around to look at them and running around a local park that's all lit up.

The Nutcracker & Other Events:
Derek and I always do a date night to see the Nutcracker in the city and I love that tradition, we also bring home a new nutcracker each year from the event.  There's a production of Elf at the local theater going on that I'd love to try to see and hopefully another fun date too.

Santa Visits:
I feel like by the end of the season we see Santa more than a handful of times and I love it.  I don't think Tatum will love Santa this year but hopefully he won't be too scared - he loves looking from a far and says "ho ho ho" when he sees him so hopefully it'll go well.  We're going to skip the "mall santa" this year since we see him at so many other events.

North Pole Breakfast, Sesame Place & Other Toddler Things:
Our elf has already returned and we're all enjoying it this year as the first "real" year of doing it even though we've had him since Tatum was born.  I love setting him up and Tatum shows a lot of excitement each morning at the new location.

Sesame Place isn't too far from here and going is new to us so were hoping to make an outing there this year as we've heard the Christmas displays/activities are great.

I have a basket full of Christmas crafts for Tatum to work on, we had a basket of Christmas books by the fireplace to read and he already seems to love kids Christmas movies - especially the Grinch.

Advent Calendar:
We have a countdown and calendar to "move the candy cane" each day but this year I got Tatum the little Step2 Advent House and picked up little goodies at the Target Dollar Spot or Dollar Store to fill it.  At first he didn't seem super interested but some days he shows more interest than others - he's most interested in putting the little daily bin back into the house each morning.

Things like sticker books, little books, light up wands, a santa hat, activity sets, snacks, etc. make up the bin to pick from each day.

Gingerbread House Making:
We never got around to this last year so I definitely want to do it this year after Tatum showed such interest in the Gingerbread Turkey from Trader Joe's last month.  We usually try to make Gingerbread cookies the same night and also have a Gingerbread Wonderland event at our country club.
Local Activities

New York Christmas:
I'm looking forward to our annual trip to New York in a couple weeks.  There's a few extra things I want to do now that Tatum's a little bit older and of course all the delicious meals up there.

Everything Else:
Gift shopping, cookie baking, family Christmas dinner(s), all of the wrapping, etc.  Glad that the shopping is almost done!  Looking forward to our traditional meals like Christmas Eve Eve dinner and Christmas Eve morning breakfast as well.