The Petros: A Weekend of Christmas Traditions-Old and New!

Some of the things I love about the holidays are the traditions that we have started as a family. After reading about my friend, Sarah's, great idea to do a different holiday activity every day in December, I was motivated to start some new traditions of our own. This weekend we enjoyed some old traditions as well as creating some new ones!

Old Tradition: Breakfast with Santa
Yesterday morning we enjoyed our annual pancake breakfast at Sienna's school. The girls were happy to see Santa, but Elijah had other ideas!

Elijah seemed to be intrigued by Santa once he was at a safe distance.

This picture has nothing to do with holiday traditions, but Isabella went to a birthday party this weekend and came home with this fancy hair-do (complete with a pink streak) and sparkly eyelids. I'm not sure that modeling is in her future!

Old Tradition: Placing Wilma the Angel on top of our Christmas tree
This year Sienna had the honor of putting Wilma on top of our tree.

It's getting harder for Mike to lift up the girls as they get bigger!

A minor adjustment...

Mission accomplished!

New Tradition: Family Christmas Movie Night

We started a tradition of Family Movie Nights complete with popcorn and a fire. We decided to watch Home Alone last night, but we were surprised by some of the language and all of the name calling!!! Is that really necessary in a kids' movie?!?! (I know, I'm such a mom...)

New Tradition: Holiday visit to Bass Pro Shops

Tons of people were waiting to see Santa, and we didn't want to wait around for several hours. Instead, we enjoyed checking out all of the animals (both live and stuffed); although, Sienna wouldn't go near this bear!

There was a pond with live fish and turtles that had a sign that warned people not to put their hands in the pond since all of the animals/fish could bite. Guess who stuck his finger in the pond to see if they'd actually bite? I'll give you a hint...it wasn't Elijah!

Elijah came up with some Christmas ideas for himself. He would either like this pink ATV...

...or this boat!

He likes anything with a steering wheel or handlebars! See?!?

Elijah, Sienna, Lauren (Sienna's friend) and I made a mid-week trip back to Bass Pro Shops and walked right up to see Santa!! As we learned with the Enchanted Village, mid-week visits are much better than weekend visits!