At the beginning of the month I felt like Christmas would never get here (probably because I had Annabel asking me every morning “Is it Christmas today?”) but now here we are with only a few days left. I finished the last of my shopping yesterday…I think…but I have wrapped exactly one present. UGH I hate wrapping.

We’ve been squeezing in a few fun Christmas-y activities before the big day. The first thing was something I saw on Pinterest ages ago. I told Annabel that while I was out shopping, a mysterious woman came up to me and pressed magic seeds into my hand. She told me to plant them in a cup of sugar and they’d grow into candy canes. Annabel’s eyes bugged out of her head while I told her the story. She immediately had lots of questions and wanted to reenact the scenario, where I played the mysterious woman and she played me. Eventually I got her to focus, and we pushed the seeds (tic tacs) into a cup of sugar. Then she stood there, staring at the cup…waiting.

waiting for her candy canes to grow

Mike and I realized that, unless we stopped her, she would literally stand there staring at the cup for hours and hours. We distracted her with dinner, and while Mike talked to her I oh-so-casually stuck some unwrapped candy canes into the cup of sugar. Surprisingly, it took her about ten minutes to realize the candy canes had appeared, but when she did realize, she went nuts with excitement.

the candy canes grew!!
THE CANDY CANES GREW YOU GUYS! THE MAGIC WORKED!!

Plus, you know…yum.

yum, I grew them myself.
They’re so delicious, I grew them myself.

Mike’s cousin gave us a tip that the local Four Seasons hotel had “Winter Wonderland” nights. My mom, aunt, the kids, and I and met Mike there after work one evening. Annie hung out with Santa again:

hanging with Santa

And also met Frosty:

hey, it's Frosty!

There was an amazing hot chocolate bar, plus all the fixings to roast marshmallows and make ‘smores:

roastin' marshmallows

'smores are goooooood

The best part, though, was when it “snowed” every thirty minutes or so. Annie was giddy – she still hasn’t seen snow (soon, though, I hope!).

dancing in the snow

it's snowing!

trying to catch the "snow" on her tongue

I have a few more things up my sleeve before Santa comes. I’ll get to that wrapping eventually.