Christmas Part 1

Hi Guys,

Sorry that it has been a few weeks, I have been busy with Christmas and the children.

I have had a very exciting Christmas; as at two Jakes is now at an age where he understands what’s happening and it is also Mia’s first one.

The build up to Christmas started in November this year as Jake started making us listen to Christmas songs in the car every time we went anywhere; he would insist on playing Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer on a loop, despite my protests, but I have to admit, I do really enjoy watching him singing along!

Early December we decided to put the Christmas decorations up. This was great fun and all the children got into it, Jake was diving into the bag, pulling out decorations and hanging them on the tree really nicely, in-fact he was doing it better than myself and Josh.

On the weekend before Christmas we took Jake and Mia to see Santa, this started off as a nightmare as we spent the Saturday driving around Milton Keynes and Hemel Hempstead to find a Santa where you didn’t have to pre-book as we didn’t release that you now had to pre-book – They never had that when I was little, I think!!

We ended up missing him on the Saturday, but thankfully on Sunday we found out that Mead Open Farm (mead open farm website) has a Christmas display and it was fantastic, they had a Santa’s grotto, a winter wonderland walk, a ride where you go on Santa’s sleigh around lap land and a place where you can also write a letter to Santa.

To build up Jakes excitement, we allowed him to carry his Santa’s ticket to Santa’s Grotto, where like a big boy he handed the ticket to the lady Elf before we all were shown through to Santa. This is the point where Jake decided to clam up; he sat down next to me and hid his head into my side whilst occasionally peeping at Santa to see if he was still there. Mia however was sitting in her push chair just staring and trying to play with Santa!

After telling me to tell Santa that he wanted Woody, Buzz, Hamm and other Toy Story Characters Santa gave Jake a golden ticket, this ticket allowed the children to pick any gifts that they wanted from Santa’s work shop.

As the shop was too small for Mia’s push chair I offered to wait outside with Mia whilst Louise went into the shop with Jake. Personally I think this was a mistake as Jake then came out with a tea set for himself, a girl’s tea set! He did however make up for this by choosing a cuddly toy elephant for Mia, which she loves.

After this we queued up to go onto the Santa sleigh ride, this involved sitting in Santa’s Sleigh (which moved) and flew through Lapland. I the asked Jake if he enjoyed flying on Santa’s Sleigh, to get the reply “programme finished”, I then tried to convince him that he really did fly on Santa’s Sleigh to again get the reply “no, programme finished!”  There’s just no fooling some people!

Next we took a walk through the Winter Wonderland, which was really pretty and both the children enjoyed it. There was a bit in there where Jake sat down and wrote a letter to Santa with Louise’s help. As he was doing this I went with Mia to a little wishing well which had a moving Polar Bear display just above the well. As soon as Mia saw this, she burst into tears, so I had to very quickly move on.

After this we had a look around the farm at the animals and then went home.

Christmas part 2 will be coming to you on Monday…….

Thank you for reading and please feel free to add any comments.

Thanks

Darren

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Up Goes The Tree...............Finally!!

Hi Guys,

It took 4 days, but Monday night we finally managed to finish putting our Christmas decorations up!

After we put the children to bed on Friday, I put the tree and lights up, but decided not to decorate it properly so that our children could help us.

Saturday morning we all went downstairs together, Jake wondered into the living room and suddenly stopped in his tracks, his hand then went to his mouth and the loudest gasp came from his mouth! He then pointed to the tree and said “Dadda, look!” At this point I think that Mia was more interested in a cushion on the sofa!

After this we had our daily dosage of Christmas songs and managed to put our novelty decorations up around the house. This included a singing teddy in a Santa suit, a singing penguin, a singing Santa and a toy Rudolf and an over excited 2 year old, unfortunately we were unable to put up the tree decorations.

Josh, on the other hand, is getting to the age where he still likes Christmas, but at 12 is to cool to get over excited about it. At one point Jake had Josh trapped in the living room, surrounded by all the novelty toys and set them all off at the same time, poor Josh just didn’t know what was happening!

Sunday we were still unable to put the decorations up as we went down to visit Louise’s Dad. Jake decided he wanted to bring Rudolf with him, who Louise’s Dad mistook for a pig!

Monday evening when I got back from work, we were finally able to put the decorations up. I asked Jake if he wanted to help and he told me that he wants to put tomatoes on the tree! I’ve still no idea where that came from!!

To keep Mia involved, she helped me put the star on at the end!!

I am starting to get really excited about Christmas now, it’s just a shame that my work colleagues tell me to be quiet every time I start singing!

Snow is falling, all around me………………….

Thanks

Darren

All I want for Christmas!!

Hi Guys

With Christmas fast approaching, I thought I’d use this week’s blog to talk about some of the Christmas fun that I’ve already had with my Children.

I was sitting down with Jake, talking to him about what’s going to happen on Christmas Eve. I asked him, “Providing you are a good boy, who’s going to be visiting you Christmas Eve?”

He stopped, bit his bottom lip in thought and replied “Reindeer!”

“Is anyone else going to be visiting you?”

“No”

“Ok, how about Santa?”

“No, Reindeer!”

At this point I thought I’d try a different tack as apparently he will be the only child having just Reindeer visit him. So I said, “Can you name any Reindeer?”

Again, he bit his bottom lip in-thought and replied “You see it; it glows (after Rudolph the red nose reindeer song).” Again he stopped to think and then went on to say “Santa Claus is coming to town!”

At this point I knew we had let him listen to too many Christmas songs!

Also, we have already written their Christmas lists this year. With Josh it is a lot more straight forward, as he is 12 he just goes off and writes his own, but the younger 2 are a different story.

This year, I sat down with both Jake & Mia and started going through a catalogue to see the sort of things they wanted. To be fair this was more for Jake as at 6 months, Mia is too little.

Anyway, we were sitting there flicking through the book with Jake saying whether either he or Mia wanted something, when Mia would suddenly spring forward, both hands extended, mouth open trying to eat the catalogue! I then had to try and prise her off so we could continue writing the list!

Since then, every day Jake will sit down, go through the catalogue and will tell us what he and Mia wants for Christmas!

Let me know if you have any fun, family friendly Christmas stories

Thanks

Darren