It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Immediately upon our return home from a wonderful Thanksgiving week with Pat's family in Gulf Shores, we set to preparing for the next big holiday (my favorite), Christmas!

The tree went up and the lights went on.  Not, without a minor catastrophe of an entire string going bad 75% of the way through.  What would holiday decorating be without a little stress.  And the kids successfully helped decorate, with only one sad casualty of the day.  Sydney's first Christmas ornament from Disney (bought it when she was there at only 6 weeks old) bit the dust.  Sniff.

She seems to think this little horn actually works.

We have a new house guest this Christmas season.  Santa sent his Elf Odie to visit us this past weekend to keep an eye on things around here.  The naming process with 3 year olds is interesting.  Our elf came VERY close to being "Spiderman."  Thankfully a dozen recent viewings of The Princess and the Frog featuring the delightful Mama Odie saved him.  It was close.  No self respecting elf could live with the name Spiderman.

He's been helping with my holiday baking.

Here's my other, er-uh, helper.  That WAS a plate full of cookies in front of him.

More about the cookies later.  But here's a quick peek at yummy peppermint oreos.  New recipe for me this year.

Yep, Odie sure has been handy.  He recently was the deliverer of a special note from Santa, reminding our sometimes naughty girl about the true spirit of Christmas.

I wasn't sure if she'd get into it yet this year or not but pretty much every morning we go hunt Odie down.  It's very upsetting if I happen to spot him first.  Then she looks at me, narrows her eyes, and demands "Did you touch him?" for fear all his magical powers will disappear.

Yes, I do believe this Christmas is going to be A LOT of fun!