It’s that wonderful time of year when the sunlight is just a little more golden. The wind is crisp and cool. Smells of cinnamon, vanilla, and apple swirl deliciously from homes and bakeries. Sleighbells tinkle along with children’s laughter as the giddiness of Christmas begins to settle upon us. This season’s decorations are starting to come out and adorn our homes and yards with boughs of holly and beautiful green garlands. Pretty candy canes and glowy Christmas lights glitter on homes and shine like stars in the night. 

This time of year is one of my absolute favorites! Our family gets together more frequently, and we all make an effort to plan cute little outings and enjoy seasonal treats. At the beginning of December, our family, Elf on the Shelf, who has so many names because the boys couldn’t come to an agreement, Chris Sugar Chippy, makes his grand appearance. I will also go on record saying that this was my husband’s idea, and this little toy becomes the bane of my existence throughout the Christmas season…The fact that he needs to move every night and is forced to come up with random fantastical ideas while trying “his” best to NEVER GET CAUGHT by our inquisitive and suspicious children makes it stressful. But the boys absolutely love him. They are so attached to him, and it really does add a little extra magic to their Christmas season. 

Aside from those theatrics, hosting our annual Christmas Cookie Exchange is one of our favorite traditions leading up to Christmas. We make up our pretty invitations, send them out to our nearest and dearest, and prepare our home to be a perfect winter wonderland. Everyone brings their best cookie recipes and containers to share and bring home. All of the kids play games and run around with each other while the adults mingle and plan. 

Another great tradition we share is making gingerbread houses! Our boys love spreading out all of the panels and the edible decorations before we start. There is always an assortment of colored sprinkles, mints, rainbow gumdrops, fluffy marshmallows, and shiny hard candies. No matter the outcome of the actual houses, everyone loves spreading the icing and decorating them while taking a few bites here and there. 

We also have our famous movie nights where we have an accompaniment dinner and snack with the film. It’s a great way to have each person contribute to the festivities and make a memorable night. One of our favorite Christmas movies is Home Alone. We always make sure to have popcorn, hot chocolate, and pizza too! The boys absolutely love it, and our cheeks end up hurting from how hard they laugh about all of the pranks in the movie. We also collectively need to watch our backs for the next couple of weeks since the boys get a thirst for pranks from the movie. But it’s always fun and interesting at our house! 

On other nights, we love going to our local public garden and seeing the beautiful light displays. They decorate with thousands of beautiful colored lights, festive inflatables, and even bring in fun food trucks and amazing treats. It’s a great way for us to also get some really cute family pictures.

 We also love it when we get our Amazon Gift catalogs in the mail. It’s such a sweet and nostalgic comparison of when we were young, and our parents let us dog ear and circle all of the toys we wanted. It’s so fun to watch the boys do the same with the familiar amount of giddiness as we did. We have to remind them frequently that circling the entirety of the catalog doesn’t mean they’re getting everything; it’s just suggestions for Santa. But we love all of it. Their eyes sparkle as they plan out which of the toys they’ll share and where it’ll go or what order they’ll take turns with it…if they get it. It’s adorable, and I love seeing their interests and how they change from month to month. 

When it finally comes to the night before Christmas, we choose a special holiday movie, get our snacks and our Christmas pj’s, leave out cookies and milk for the big guy, and wish our sweet, excited little boys good night. Once the house is silent, my husband and I like to take a moment to sit in the glow of the Christmas lights and savor the excitement and contentment in the house. We are always grateful for every night together, but nights like that really reflect how blessed we are and how much every laugh, every kiss, and smile mean so much to us. This is also the last night that the boys get to spend with their elf, Chris Sugar Chippy, before he goes back to the North Pole for his much-needed vacation. They say their teary goodbyes to their friend, and then it’s off to sleep. Normally, everything is wrapped and put out by this point, but if we’re having a particularly busy season, this is also when we ramp it up and crank out the rest of the wrapped presents and make everything look beautiful and ready for the next morning. 

We make it a point to wake up a whole 30 minutes prior to when the boys normally wake up so we can turn on every single Christmas decoration and string of lights in the whole house. We always make sure my husband consumes every drop of milk bites of the cookies, and sometimes, we even get some reindeer nibbles if we have some carrots lying around. If I want to get fancy, I also like to sprinkle some elf-shaped glitter trails that lead to the presents. Their elf usually leaves a sweet goodbye note, and then the present opening madness begins. It’s amazing, chaotic, full of love, happy squeals, and many smiles. I love it and make sure to soak in every ounce of happiness I can. After my husband and I take turns following our happy little boys around with a trash bag, we sit and build, add batteries, and cut off tags until everyone is happy enjoying each other’s gifts and eat breakfast like it’s going out of style. Christmas will always be such a happy and glowy time for us, and I wish everyone out there the same amount of love for the holidays!

This was written by our contributing writer, Isis Jordan.