A Christmas Story

Maddie's school holiday show. (Maddie is in the red dress with the white fur collar in the front on the right side.) Her class learned all about the different holiday celebrations and she was VERY sad that I didn't know how to celebrate Hanukkah so that she could get presents eight days in a row. I promised her that I will read a "Hanukkah for Dummies" type book and watch some YouTube videos to be better prepared for next year.

Carrying on the Tobler tradition of making gingerbread houses before Christmas.

Build-a-Bear is of the devil. These things are seriously, seriously overpriced. And for some reason Maddie insists that they need underwear even though they have pants, along with every other possible accessory, as well as a stroller so she doesn't have to carry them. And of course I don't want to carry them all over the mall, so I agree on the stroller, which sets a bad precedent for next time we go there. It's a viscous cycle.

At the beautiful and cold nativity in Las Vegas.

Aunt Juli has lovely (you have to use that word a lot around English folks) parents-in-law that came all the way from England to celebrate Christmas with us. Maxine taught Maddie how to make proper (another favorite English adjective) Yorkshire pudding. If you can't tell, Maddie adores them.

Josh's family has this horribly torturous tradition of making the kids wait to see what Santa brought and open presents until the grandparents arrive. We had to distract Maddie and then wait in the lobby until 8:00 when Grandma and Grandpa Harris showed up. (Just warning you guys that it will be moved up significantly earlier next year!)

Maddie's favorite presents this year:

1) The hat that Josh bought me that didn't fit even though he made the store employee go in the back and find an extra large. So Maddie got it by default, but she loves it all the same. (I have a large head. What do you want me to say?!)

2) A karaoke microphone. Maddie would rather die than dance in front of people, and she is so shy to talk to somebody, but strangely, she will sing in front of anybody. Weird. But I will encourage that as long as she doesn't want to be the next Hannah Montana.

3) Lots-o-huggin Bear from Toy Story 3. I thought this was a weird request that she had for Santa because he is the villain in the movie. But now I think she regrets it. She has been freakishly in love with this bear, carrying him everywhere, won't put him down, and giving him lots of hugs. I thought I knew why, and it was confirmed by this little exchange:

Me: "Why do you love that little bear so much?"

Maddie: "Because if I don't love him a lot he will be evil and be mean to my other toys."

Poor thing. Maybe I should just D.I. it and save my daughter from this horrible weight.