Lillyfield: The Holidays

The Haas Family has a few standard Holiday traditions and it seems each year we add a new ones and tweak old ones. We kicked off the holidays this year by heading to my parents house for Thanksgiving. Scott took the whole week off, which is really rare. We decided to drive to Dallas first. We spent the day shopping at IKEA (Scott had never been before) and then spent the night with our great friends, Mary and James. It was nice to have a break in the long drive and when we got up we were only an hour and half from Mom and Dad’s. My sister and I spent the day cooking and preparing for the feast the following day. It was so much fun and we had a blast just hanging out and playing with the kids.

On Friday, we went to Rochester to decorate Lilly’s tree. Scott was able to go with us this time which we all enjoyed since he is rarely with us when we travel to TX. Plus, this was the first time he has seen the improvements that my parents made to our family plots (pouring the curbs and filling in the low spot with dirt). It really has made all the difference and looks so great now. Oddly enough, it was freezing that day so we didn’t spend a lot of time there.

After Thanksgiving it was time to really start gearing up for Christmas. One of our Christmas traditions usually includes going to the tree farm to cut down our tree. Unfortunately this year we had to skip our annual trip to all of our dismay. We simply didn’t have the room this year to put up a big tree. We settled for a 4ft artificial tree. Since we were all a little disgruntled at having to skip one of our favorite holiday events, we put the tree up before Thanksgiving. Liberty also insisted on putting Christmas lights up in the house since we couldn’t put them up outside this year.

Something we have done for several year now is go ice skating downtown. This is Liberty’s favorite thing to do. She talks about it all year long. Again this year, it was so warm that the ice in the rink was actually melting. I was a lot more like trying to water ski on ice skates! Liberty was soaking wet within minutes. She is finally old enough that falling down isn’t all the fun it used to be. She had a lot of fun, but she didn’t argue when it was time to leave.

Scott has refused to skate for the past couple of years. Instead, he hung out with Emory and watched. We also attempted to visit Santa Clause the same day. This is a hit and miss tradition with us. Because we don’t actually teach the girls to believe in Santa it usually isn’t a high priority. This year, however, Liberty insisted on going. We went to North Pole City because we had been told that he was the best Santa. From what we saw it appeared to be true. However, after waiting for over an hour we gave up! This girls had fun looking around the store and riding on the train though.

Christmas cards are my favorite part of the holidays. I love sending them and I love receiving them! We ended up taking three different Christmas pictures. Our first shoot went very badly and all the pictures turned out terrible. The second shoot was a winner. The girls looked so beautiful in their Christmas dresses. We ended up using that photo for our cards. However, when I went to address them, I realized I was 10 short. We ended up taking the third picture at church one night. It turned out so great too and we used that pic for our last 10 cards.

This year during the Territorial Christmas here in Guthrie, Liberty performed in The Nutcracker in a Half Shell with her dance studio. She was so beautiful! She did a great job with her routine and was so proud. She had two different performances and after each we gave her flowers. I think she thought this was the best part! It was her feel so special.

Finally, Christmas Eve! We celebrated by attending the candlelight service at our church. It was such a great kid-friendly service and Liberty really enjoyed it. When we got home we had dinner and a birthday cake for Jesus.

In and effort to save time, Liberty decided we should buy a pre-made cake from the store. She thought this one was the most beautiful! She had to add her own decorations though.

On Christmas Eve the girls always open pajamas. This year I found the cutest matching snowman PJs. They looked so cute.

Christmas morning Liberty managed to sleep unitl 8:30. Since we stayed up late the previous night, I had to wake the baby up so we could open gifts. Scott and I try very hard to keep the gifts to a minimum and make them thoughtful. This year was especially fun because Liberty had been wanting a scooter since she broke her little one this past summer. So, of course, we got her a new “big girl” scooter. I also decided to get her a sewing machine. She definitely wasn’t expecting it and was totally thrilled. Emory was easy this year. She got a baby and a little radio. She was just happy to open something.

Liberty’s reaction to opening her sewing machine.

After we opened presents, we got ready and headed over to have Christmas dinner with our good friends, Ellen and Spencer. Of course, there were more presents there too. We had a great time and came home full and happy for afternoon naps.