My Favorite Time of Year

I just LOVE this time of year...from the beginning of November through the middle of January.  I love fall and winter weather.  I love fall and winter clothes.  I love the atmosphere.  I love the extra time with family.  I love the excitement of my kids.  And I really love doing extra special things with and for my kids during this time.

While at church on Sunday, someone told me about this website called "Portable North Pole".  You can customize messages for your kids from Santa.  You can include pictures, special info about your child, etc.  And then Santa will put together a video and send an email to your child so they can watch his video to them.  It is absolutely the coolest thing. 

So I put together one for each of my oldest three kids and they got to watch them on Sunday evening...and yesterday evening...and they've already asked if they can watch them again tonight.  They were absolutely amazed that Santa would take time out of his busy schedule to make and send them a video.  It was too cute.  The look on Jacob's face when Santa told him that he knew that Jacob was trying to stop sucking his thumb (one of the personalizations I got to make), but he knew that Jacob could try even harder...well, it was priceless. 

How fun it is to be able to do things like this and see the look on your kids' faces!  While we teach our kids that Christmas is NOT about Santa, it's NOT about getting, and it's NOT about toys, we still savor these moments as much as possible....for I know that these moments are fleeting. 

The two older ones do understand that Christmas is about celebrating Jesus.  In fact, Madilyn's teacher told me that there was a little boy in their class the other day that was telling the class that Christmas is about Santa and Madilyn's "older sister" personality came out and told him "Uh-uh.  Christmas is about Jesus!".  By George....They're getting it!!!!!!!  And it makes this Momma's heart swell with pride. 

Like I said...I LOVE this time of year.  I pray that we can all slow down and enjoy each and every moment we have....to enjoy our kids, to enjoy family and friends, but, even more importantly, to prepare for the celebration of our Savior's birth.