it's christmas eve.

Merry Christmas everyone!
I have things I haven't blogged about, but tonight is not the night, so I guess I will do several more on sunday and get all caught up.
I am happy to say that even though I was sick for a while, and missed several of the Journal Your Christmas prompts, I have blogged 24 posts this month! I can't wait to turn several of these entries into scrapbook pages in my christmas 2010 album. I think I may have to take a hiatus in Jan to scrap instead of blog. I don't think we have much going on in Jan until Grayson's birthday at the end of the month, but if we do something exciting, I guess I can fill ya in.

We don't do santa.

I know I have explained this to everyone we associate with every year, but I still get surprized looks (gasp) when I say it, so I will explain again.
We skip santa because:

- Thomas is a bit different, and wouldn't understand it if we tried to explain it to him, so we just never started. Plus, I don't know why I would want to spend the time and effort convincing my kids that a lie is true.

- I want to focus our christmas celebrations around Christ's birth. I do this with the decorations I choose, and with the music we hear, and the activities we do. it's not just for the kids. it is for me too.

- kids are kinda scared of santa. why are parents so mean to put a poor screaming child on the stanger in the red suits lap, just for a picture, when they clearly are not comfortable with this plan?
we went to a "kindergarten round up" on Wed, and they had santa and mrs. claus handing out candy canes to the kids. Grayson was just sitting on my lap, and he was scared when he was all the way across the room. Thomas didn't even give him a second look.

- and one big reason is because I don't want the kids thinking they can ask for a rediculously expensive gift, and say "well, I will ask Santa for it". Like I said at the beginning of this journaling experience, I don't want christmas to be focused around the gifts - they are a cool part - and they are fun to give, but they can't be IT.
so there ya go. it's not a big deal. I hope you can understand and maybe even support us, instead of trying to convince us we have made a bad decision.
Merry Christmas (mas =more = More Christ)