Christmas in the air

Nora doesn't really "anticipate" events yet, so we haven't gone too crazy with Santa/holiday stuff this year. But we have done a couple Christmas-y things.  The holidays were always magical for me growing up.  Someday I'd like them to be magical for Nora, too!

1) Visiting Santa.  Last year we didn't go, but this year we thought the classic Santa photo would be fun.  We went to the one in the Inner Harbor- Santa has his own house!  We went on a weeknight and we were the only ones there- no wait. :)   Also, our Santa shared... a lot... way too much... about his personal life.    I just didn't want to know those things about "Mrs Claus"- lol! Made for a funny memory, though.



The photo turned out great!  Kind of looks like it was taken in 1983,  but Nora even has a little smile- no tears for her this year.  She really liked Santa because he gave her bells to ring (and she got to keep them!).



2)  Opening the Advent calendar.  We used to do these every year growing up.  My favorite kinds were the ones with chocolate or little ornaments inside.  My mom and dad got Nora this calendar all the way from Germany when they traveled there this fall.  It's a very basic calendar with little pictures behind the numbers but it's been fun to have one in the house.  Though Nora doesn't understand why she can't just open them all up at once.



3) Listening to "I'm a Dancing Christmas Tree".  Nora likes when we all do the dance together.



4) Visiting the science center.  This isn't Christmas-y per se, but since it's been colder outside, we've been taking full advantage of our membership here.  It has a lot of fun things for Nora to explore.  Here's a cute picture of her on the third floor, and then another (blurry) picture of her walking among the "dinosaur" eggs.