The Other Side of the Fence: 'Tis the season

We've had a very holiday-centered weekend here. On Saturday we took a "Santa Express" train ride with a group of friends. The train ride was fun and in the middle, Santa himself (a really poor version) came on board and handed out chocolate lollipops. Today J and his mom took the girls to an Advent event at his mom's church. Not being Christian, I really don't know what that is, but it was great because I got a kid-free morning! And an excuse to put Little A in a very cheesy Santa-themed dress (thanks mom!). Then this afternoon, I got to take Big A to a spa-themed birthday party. I can't believe her classmates are turning 5. Eek. It was pretty cute, although we did learn that Big A seems to be the only 4-year-old that has no clue who Justin Beiber is. I'm not too upset about that...

Speaking of mom, as a Jewish mom, its hard for me to really know how to handle the season. Since J is Christian and we celebrate Christmas with his family, I feel okay with letting the girls believe in Santa and have fun with that. And its really hard to compete with Santa - I mean, a candelabra with 8 candles is just not that exciting. I guess I'm still working out my strategy. As kids, my parents didn't want us to feel left out, so we got stockings on Christmas. We pretended to believe in Santa for a long time in order to keep this stocking tradition alive. On Christmas day, we'd open our stockings, have lots of yummy food all day and play with our new toys and watch movies. It was one of my favorite days of the year. Its really not too unlike how we celebrate now. We spend the holiday with J's family, and I focus on the stockings for the girls - with girls this is really fun since there are multitudes of small-sized girl toys. This year I am introducing Polly Pocket to Big A which is making me WAY too excited. They get presents from the rest of his family and we have a yummy breakfast, play all day and then a big Christmas dinner. Still one of my favorite days of the year.

As much fun as the season is with kids, it is also simply crazy. Just Big A's school schedule alone is enough to drive one nuts. There are deadlines for an adopt-a-family, a lunch with Santa, a crazy sweater day and a class gift exchange. Add in teacher gifts and figuring out the holiday break schedule, throwing in J's schedule too and its enough to make your head swim. I can only imagine this will get more complicated as they get older.

All crazy aside, I'm enjoying the season, and love seeing the excitement of my girls with each event. There is definitely some magic happening here.

The girls on the Santa Express