New Traditions

Since Connor was so excited about Christmas this year, we decided that we would start our own new family traditions.  Brad and I have talked about what we want to do for a couple of years, but waited until this year to start them.  The first new tradition was introducing Elfie.  He arrived on Thanksgiving and got into something different each night while Connor was sleeping.  One day he rode the train around the Christmas Tree and another he sat on Connor's potty and even had a message from Santa encouraging Connor to use the potty.  We usually go to my parent's house in Houston on Christmas Eve, but we wanted to be home for Christmas morning so we started a couple of Christmas Eve traditions at the Anderson house.  For Christmas Eve dinner, Brad made his yummy turkey chili and I made a red velvet cake.  After dinner we decorated cookies for Santa and then went out to our patio to drink chocolate and roast marshmallows in the fire pit. 

Connor got to open one present on Christmas Eve and then we left the cookies and milk out for Santa before he went to bed.  Santa left presents (and ate the cookies and drank the milk) at our house and Connor was SO excited when he woke up and went straight to the tree where he found the bear, book and "Dora house" that he requested from Santa along with quite a few other presents. 

After opening presents, we ate a breakfast casserole and headed down to Houston for Christmas with my family.