Christmas is almost here and we have been getting ready for the big day for weeks now! I love this time of year, and we have lots of old and new traditions that go along with it.
This year we started a new tradition with my parents of baking Christmas cookies. It was a little difficult to find recipes that we could use to adapt to Hayden's allergies, but through some research we found some great alternatives. Almond milk has been working great as a substitute for milk, and we used coconut oil as a replacement for butter. Hayden had a blast sifting the flour and eating the dough. And not that I am biased, but our oatmeal raisin and peanut butter cookies turned out great!
Another new tradition was to go over to our good family friend Terry's house and made gingerbread houses. She was kind enough to already have all of the houses made for us so all we had to do was put our creative touches on the decorations. Hayden lasted about 2 seconds decorating and then figured out he could eat all of the decorations!
Another new tradition was to go over to our good family friend Terry's house and made gingerbread houses. She was kind enough to already have all of the houses made for us so all we had to do was put our creative touches on the decorations. Hayden lasted about 2 seconds decorating and then figured out he could eat all of the decorations!
While my mom and I were busy working on the gingerbread houses (which were actually made out of chocolate!), Hayden was busy pointing at all of Terry's Christmas decorations and having her show him how they all work!
An old tradition we have is to go with my parents to pick out our Christmas trees. Hayden was a little preoccupied playing in the water puddle, but we had a good time searching for the perfect trees!
When we got home Chris went right to work at getting it all ready for decorations. It went as good as to be expected and I think we only had a few casualties!! It only took once for Hayden to realize that these were fragile balls and couldn't be thrown. Then he was obsessed with taking the tops off the ornaments and then trying to put them back on the tree. But after a few days the tree was old news and he hasn't really bothered it since :) (His newest fun thing to do is to pull the bows off all the presents!)
We have been going to the Union Christmas parties since I was a little kid and it has been fun these past few years to take Hayden to them. He did okay with Santa once he gave him a candy cane, then they were best friends and he kept walking up to him and giving him a high five and pounding it!
We hope everyone has a great Christmas and a Happy Holidays!
