It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

For me, Christmas holds a lot of great, happy memories that are near and dear to my heart. I want more than anything for my children to have great memories of love and family in our home so this year has been especially fun creating new memories and carrying on family traditions with Gabbie. I bought a book at the beginning of November called, "Twelve Days of Christmas: Ideas for a more meaningful holiday season" by Betty Van Orden. This author and her husband wanted to create valuable memories for their children and grandchildren and came up with many ideas to instill in their family memories of love and togetherness. I loved it and I hope as Gabbie gets older and we have one or two more kids, we can also create fun, loving memories for them. These are some of the traditions new and old we have participated in this year...so far! More to come!


There are a few Christmas goodies I love to eat every year and this is a new one we've added to our list: peppermint bark popcorn. It is literally one of the best things I have ever tasted and I've made it for a few friends and family and it's received great reviews. I didn't come up with it on my own, I saw it on one of my favorite websites, www.ourbestbites.com and I can't get enough of it!

This year we decided to try out Thanksgiving Points Holiday Lights. It costs $8 per car to drive through and see the lights and it is so worth it! Gabbie kept turning her head left and right looking at all the lights. I would highly recommend going with your family!

Yes, my daughter is only 8 months and will have no recollection of going to see Santa for the first time but I HAD to take her. She did great! She loves meeting new people anyways so for her, Santa was no exception. The Santa was darling and gave Gabbie a little memory book that he signed for her to always remember her first visit to see him.

A fun memory my side of the family has is that we eat Chinese food around my parents Christmas tree with Christmas music and eat dinner eliminated only by the lights of the tree. I love it!

Something new we also tried this year was Hogle Zoo's, Zoo Lights. DARLING! And sooo worth it! We were very cold but it was fun and we had a great time. The above picture is of my dear friend Jessica and her adorable family. I love you Jess!

Gabbie and Daddy enjoying the lights at Zoo Lights. Being a first time, paranoid mom, Gabbie had about 10 layers of clothes on and it paid off! She didn't cry once and did really well considering how cold it was.

I'm always looking for more Christmas ideas. Do any of you have fun things to share with me that we could use for our family?