Weekend Of Holiday Movies & Fun

Wow, I can't believe the last weekend before Christmas has been here and gone! Crazy! Unfortunately our tree is drying out fast, and it's losing needles (lots of needles) daily! We're hoping it can hang in there for a few more days. I'm really considering taking it down Christmas day. It still looks pretty, but the needles are a pain to keep vacuuming up. Remember my new vacuum I got about a month ago? It's getting lots and lots of use lately with all these needles on the carpet!

We had a nice family weekend as we wrapped up some holiday things. Evan wanted to see Santa over at Eastwood Towne Center (the mall by us) and this was the last weekend to do it. So we headed over there Saturday afternoon. There were reindeer, horse and carriage rides, Santa, cookies and hot cocoa, and giveaways. It was snowing a little which was kind of nice for the scenery, but it was COLD! The kids checked out the reindeer and Em was all over them, but once again, nothing to do with Santa. So here we have another picture of Evan and Santa, but none of Em with Santa!


Evan once again told Santa he wanted drums and a robot, and since Em wouldn't get up in the sleigh he told Santa his sister wanted a baby doll. Check, check, and check! Looks like Santa got the right stuff this year... or did he? Tonight Evan decides he wants a telescope. Sorry, but Santa is done shopping! I think he only said that because he was looking at one of the ads in the paper and there was a picture of one!

The mall was handing out reusable lunch bags that had some goodies in them- coupons, jelly beans from the candy store at the mall, and some had gift cards. They did this last year too, every weekend from Thanksgiving until the week before Christmas. Except they handed out reusable shopping bags last year. We got a couple Pottery Barn $10 gift cards, a Guess $10 gift card, and $10 gift card to a local restaurant. This year they said some bags had gift cards, but I think they all did, at least the batch they handed out when we got ours because everyone was talking and they had the same gift cards. There were $20 Guess gift cards in each bag. We ended up with $60 of Guess gift cards, plus we still have the $10 one from last year. Of course gift cards to a place we never shop.

We didn't do the horse and carriage ride because it was too cold, but the kids enjoyed some hot cocoa and cookies. The rest of our weekend was spent staying warm inside watching some Christmas movies on t.v. We watched Home Alone, Home Alone 2, Elf, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Shrek the Halls, Disney Prep & Landing, and Frosty. Not all in their entirety, but parts of some. I love the Christmas movies on t.v. this time of year!