The Christmas Favorite things - from gingerbread, to candle light dinner to Santa Express.

Here is our effort in creating a few little traditions that can go a long way - The gingerbread house.  Simple (prepackaged) and fun to watch how many decorations get on the house versus home many the munchkins try to sneak into their little mouths.  

Once again, my favorite spot to decorate was around our dining room light.  The ornaments are Campbell soup balls that my Godmother Anne bought me through the years as a young girl.  I have 5 to this day ranging from 1980-1986.  Thanks Mom for keeping them safe over the years.

I am pretty sure Shane is trying to justify the consumption of another gummy - 

Handy with the scissors

Drew was my decorator in the Christmas Cookie cutout for this year.  We kept it simple only creating Stars and Trees (I used wheat flour too and honestly loved it!)

Candle light dinner was another favorite.

Now for the Grandpopa!  The Essex steam train does a Santa Express.  You gotta be on it with the Ticket purchasing and we manged to snag seats on the one 23 December - the final day of school!  We scooped the boys up just a bit early and drove down to Essex.

It was a chilly wintery day - but not too cold

We did see Heidi, Mike, Waylan and Madelyn as they were getting off the express right before we got on.  So cool to be able to give them some hugs before they headed to their Florida Christmas adventure visiting family and friends down there.

Shane, do you think Santa will be on the trains?  

All aboard!

Love this photo that Heidi took for us.  Makes the train look Old Timey and Shane's face pressed up against the window is just priceless.

Here we go

You think all these flannels actually go together?  For Christmas, yes.

Drew needed and wanted to be protected by either Goomba or Oma Sue (his sweater is seriously classic and I made him wear it almost the entire season!)

Here comes Mrs. Claus

And now - Jolly O' St. Nicholas!  What a super cheery and personal guy.

Drew doesn't seem to think so...

We sang carols on the way back and just enjoyed the ride

We explored Old Saybrooke and hit a fabulous dinner on the way home that included Lobster mac and Cheese.  Not possible to mess that up.  

Had we done the night time Polar express the boys would have been in these PJs - I thought they were all from Tate through the years.  I passed the photo along to Farrah and she couldn't confirm that - I will have to dig through their photos for verification as I love how Tate's clothes get so well used by this crew!