The Maner Family Blog: Christmas 2012

It snowed!

Instead of taking the kids to see Santa at the mall this year, we went to have breakfast with Santa. Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman were there too. They had a craft station and a place where you can mail letters to Santa...it was a neat set-up. Paxton kept saying he wanted to go up to Santa and his friends, but every time he got close, he ran back to me and clung onto my leg. Needless to say, Pax didn't get a picture with Santa this year :-( Blakely did though, she had no problem with him.

Unlike last year, Paxton definitely recognized who Santa was now that he's older. Every time he saw a billboard or an inflatable Santa in someone's yard, he'd be sure to point it out. Alan was having a guy's breakfast at the Original Pancake House one morning with just him and Pax. A rather large man with a white beard walked by their table and Paxton pointed and said, "SANTA!" Not sure if the man heard him, but Alan sure got a kick out of it. Pax was so cute, he would go around saying, “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” Once we were at the grocery store, and he saw some big candles painted on the window. When he spotted them, he acted like he was blowing them out and said, “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” Love it!!! (Video below)

We had a fun Christmas. Other than being down with the flu, I made sure I didn’t miss our first Christmas as a family of four. As we always do, we went up to my parents’ house on Christmas Eve and stayed through Christmas day. Paxton and I baked some cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. He had so much fun using cookie cutters and then frosting and decorating them with sprinkles. I’m pretty sure he dumped the entire container of sprinkles all over the place. We made a mess, but it was great! Before he went to bed, he picked three of his best cookies and put them on a plate. We poured a glass of milk and put that and the cookies out on the table for Santa. In the morning, Paxton woke up and quickly remembered he had set the snack out for Santa, so he immediately asked me about it. We went to the table, and Paxton was amazed that Santa had eaten most of the cookies and drank the milk. He even left a letter for Paxton and Blakely! Pax wasn’t too interested in what Santa had to say though, he just thought it was pretty cool that Santa liked his cookies. Later on, Colby, Jayla, Carsyn, Carlie, and Cade came over. Brad was already there at the house visiting from Texas Tech. We all opened gifts. Blakely and Cade slept through it all. Paxton had fun opening a gift, and then insisting that we open the package and let him play with it. We had to keep telling him to open the rest first. The best thing about Christmas this year was that it snowed!!!