Traditions!

It is important to us to have family traditions.  I feel it holds a family together and creates memories!  I think Phil and I have done a great job of combining both of our families' traditions and making some new ones of our own.  From a tangerine in our stockings to gingerbread houses to cutting down a fresh Christmas tree, we have so many traditions I love this time of the year! 

Every year my parents came home from black Friday shopping with a box of chocolates, of course I couldn't let that tradition go!

As a child, I remember making this paper chain.  Each link represents how many days until Christmas.  Every morning, Luke takes of a link and we count how many more days are left until Christmas.

Phil's mom made an awesome advent calendar for us this year!  Every day Luke takes out a piece of paper that has something Christmasy for us to do for that day.  From visiting a Christmas craft fair to singing Christmas songs to going to the Children's Museum for story time (thank you so much for the membership), each day is something new!  We all LOVE it!  Thank you so much for this Nancy!  This will definitely become a new family tradition every year!

 One day, it told us to make a gingerbread house!  Luke has been asking us to go this since Halloween!

 I love Ryan's face in this picture!  He is sneaking candy to eat!

 Every year the boys go see Santa.  This year, Phil's work had cookies with Santa.  Luke refused to sit on Santa's lap because he was too worried Santa would now of all of the "bad" things he had done!  =)

 Our newest tradition this year is The Elf on the Shelf.  Our elf was named Mr. Toys by Luke.  The elf watches the boys all day long.  At night, he flies to see Santa to tell him if you were good or bad.  When the boys wake up the next morning, he is always in a different spot.  Luke loves to find him!  Here Mr. Toys is sitting in a wreath.