It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Having a new member of the family to introduce all the fun customs and traditions to has been SO FUN this year! I love the year of firsts, in fact that is all Andy and I have known since we married - the first year was "Our Firsts" as Reinbergs and now, we have Eleanor's firsts to enjoy!

This past weekend we visited Santa at the Galleria in Dallas. I was very particular and borderline offensive and snobby (sorry if I was that to you if I in any way scoffed at your Santa) about which Santa we would go to. I even thought about scouting out each of the malls/places Santa appears and picking which one I thought would be best for Eleanor but ran out of time. I finally narrowed down my decisions to Northpark and Galleria. Galleria actually had a picture of their Santa on the website unlike anyone else and I just love Northpark so was a little partial in thinking theirs would be good. After looking at the calendar and time schedule, decided that Galleria was the choice. It worked better with Eleanor's nap schedule as they opened at 11 whereas Northpark opened right when the whole city of Dallas would be done with church at 12:30.

Galleria ended up being a wonderful choice! My hopes for Eleanor's first Santa encounter were that of sweet little Susan Walker in Cole's department store in "Miracle on 34th Street." Galleria Santa's little wonderland wasn't more than a bunch of tasteful Christmas lights on lots of greenery and his big velvet chair but it was perfect! I was quite surprised when we arrived at 11:07 and there was already a line wrapped halfway around the wonderland. When the little elf told us it would be 10 min I was relieved. We finally got to see Santa after waiting for not 10 min. but an hour and Eleanor was a champ throughout the entire wait! She was so giggly and as I worried that her giggles would turn to fussiness at any second, she pulled through until she got to Santa!

When we sat her on him she just stared at him in wonder. Not necessarily in shock or "who the heck are you?" but just in the perfect awe and wonder that every child has when they get to see and touch and be in the presence of that mystical figure, Santa Claus! When she heard all the bells and tambourines she finally looked at us and my desperate attempts to stray her gaze from the jolly old man in the red suit finally proved successful and we got a decent picture!

After pictures we took a stroll down to the skating rink and COrner Bakery and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast while Eleanor was enthralled in the little objects moving on the sea of white and the GIGANTIC Christmas tree in the center of it all. Any commented that he would like to see a tree like that in real life - "Only if you are Clark Griswold," I told him!

We then went shopping for Andy's class' Angel gift and he decided HE wanted to pick out a toy for Eleanor which led him to make her hand touch and push every button on every toy in the kid's section of Target. He decided that "she" liked a little farm animal piano thing. I guess we now are giving her a toy for Christmas ha!

After shopping we picked up "Aunt MEA" and headed to the Gaylord to take some more pictures. BIG MISTAKE! It was a MAD HOUSE! The line to get into the parking garage was forever long so I thought, let's spkurge and do valet. BAD decision...it was $20. So I got back into line and resorted to paying $12 for parking. Keep that in mind if you are wanting to go get a few pictures taken. Probably not worth it unless you go on a not so busy weekday and can actually get some pictures without people in them. Regardless, we got a few shots though I haven't been able to view them on the comp. When I can, I will post the best.

We are STILL waiting to get our Christmas card together. I haven't been able to get the "perfect shot" where one of us doesn't have snot dripping out our nose (we have all had colds) and we are all in good moods (mainly Eleanor) and smiling and in coordinating clothes. Andy growled at me when he came out in a red shirt (very sweet of him to try and dress himself in the holiday spirit but not what I had in mind) and I politely informed him that I had already picked out his shirt and his red shirt clashed with the red shirt I was wearing :) He is such a sweet and agreeable husband for letting me have my way with family matchy but not too matchiness...coordinate is really my word of choice. We will see how these pictures turn out and hopefully have cards in the mail before Santa hits the roof. I might just need to accept that not every picture we "publish" in a Christmas card will be perfect and resort back to my blog title and remind myself that our family is a beautiful "mess" not a model of perfection. Though it is very hard for me to accept that everything can't be perfect, I am working on loving my imperfections and living with them rather than stressing my life away to fix them. That is a whole different blog post though.

Until next time, Merry Christmas and remember, not presents, stressful mall (or in our case Gaylord) traffic, Christmas card mailout deadlines, baking, report card deadlines, perfect coordinating outfits BUT JESUS are/is the reason for the season! :) I am more or less saying that for my own reminder...God Bless!