McAlister Christmas 2012

In 11 years of living in Texas, this makes only the second time we haven't gone home to Mississippi for Christmas.  The first being the year Brenna was born and we thought it best not to subject baby Brenna (meaning ourselves) to the extensive travel that usually takes place with a newborn in tow.  Of course, being with our families during this very special time of year makes all the effort totally worth it, especially the enjoyment Brenna gets from seeing everyone!  Unfortunately, that doesn't make the travel any less painful.  Every year involves lots of luggage, plane flights, rental cars, and longs hours of driving back and forth across the state of Mississippi.  I work to keep Brenna occupied and content on the plane and in the car as the miles roll by and worry about luggage weight limits with every gift that's opened.

This year things were alittle different.  With Brenna being in kindergarten now, we're restricted to her school holidays.  This year our Texas school calendar got out later than our Mississippi family and Mississippi schools went back earlier than we did.   Because matching up the calendars proved to be a problem, we settled for the promise of coming home sometime early in the new year.

So, this Christmas has been very different from what we've known in the past.  We had a nice, quiet, and slow paced holiday filled with lots of Christmas fun.

First new thing, my Christmas tree!  I've spent years torturing myself (and Jacob) with my old, limb-by-limb, non-lit tree.  Last year after Christmas my Mom found a great 12-foot, pre-lit, slim-line, pop-up Chistmas tree on clearance for 75% off!!!!  I made my Dad haul it to me all the way from Mississippi!!!  It was totally worth it!  I loved the new tree!  It reached all the way to our second story!  In 10 years of decorating my own Christmas tree, this is my favorite by far!

Christmas is in the Giving

As the week of Christmas drew near, so did the plan for Christmas Candy!  It's become a holiday tradition over the last couple of years to show our friends and neighbors how much we appreciate them through the gift of food!  This year I stuck with my Mom's recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats.  This was one of my favorites when I was kids and since there seems to be so much chocolate circulating during the holidays I think its a nice change of pace.  Because of the time and amount needed, I decided to tackle the actually candy making alone this year while Brenna was still in school.  However, I did save the packing up for her, which made for a very merry after-school activity.

Kindergarten Christmas

School has been packed full of Christmas fun these last few weeks.  There's been fun Christmas assignments, lots of Christmas crafts, and exciting Christmas parties.  The first week of the month, Brenna came home with her Christmas Bell (colored rainbow, of course) that she made herself, along with her weekly poetry journal assignment that told the purpose of the Christmas Bell.

December first until Christmas

Is the longest time of year.

It seems as though Christmas

Never will get here.

How many days until Christmas?

It's kind of hard to count.

So this little bell will help you

To know the exact amount.

Remove one link each night

As the sandman casts his spell

And Christmas day will here

By the time you reach the bell.

She has faithfully cut one link each night in her count down to Christmas and she grows more and more excited with each link that comes off.  Also, we had Polar Express Day on Thursday, where the kids got to wear their PJs to school and enjoy a ride on the Frost Polar Express.  The kids all got tickets to board the train and then kicked back and enjoyed the movie with hot cocoa and marsh mellows.  

It Snowed in Houston!

Not really, but kinda!  Good enough for the kids to have some fun.  Our neighborhood hosted the 2nd Annual Long Meadow Farms Christmas Party the first week of December.  It was 82 degrees, but we still had snow!  There was a snow hill (man-made of course), rides, rock walls, crafts, and fun for the kids.

The kids loved the snow.  They played nearly two hours just pummeling each other and us over and over again.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Brenna usually sings in the bath tub.  Tonight she was singing the Christmas carol she learned at school today in Music Class.  This is how the conversation went.

Brenna -  ".... three french hens, two turtles doves, and a portridge in the pantry!"
Me -  "Brenna, its a partridge in a pear tree"
Brenna -  "No its not!"
Me - "Yes it is!"
Brenna - "Are you sure?"
Me - "Do you know what a partridge is?"
Brenna - "Yeah, its a picture!"
Me - "No, that's a portrait!  A partridge is a kind of bird."
Brenna - "Oh, that makes more sense, because we don't put birds in the pantry!"

Notice Anything Missing?

Christmas Portraits

I take alot of pictures.  But, like I've mentioned before, they're never portraits.  They're just snap shots of our life as we live it!  As I work more and more on photography and with my camera, I've come to realize that's all I really want.  I want picture memories of our life as we know it now.  I admire pictures from professional photographers and the engineering side of me enjoys working out the mechanics of how they took the picture, but that's as far as my enthusiasm goes.

With that in mind, as Christmas time approached I began to dread Christmas cards!  I knew I wanted a cute picture in a cute dress that captured just how spunky Brenna is right now.  Unfortunately, I also knew that Brenna would not be thrilled to set out on a mission to take posed portraits.  Brenna can't be still, ever!  So anything I did would have to be fast and candid and that didn't exactly jive with the beautiful, timeless portrait I had in my mind (which I probably wasn't technically competent enough to produce anyway!)  I had images of beautiful landscaped backgrounds and sunset lighting with styled hair and perfect smiles!  Ha!  What was I thinking!?!?  In the end, my extravagant photo opportunity turned into an impromptu walk down to the creek behind our house and just praying that something would turn out!

The actual picture taking was painful, since Brenna didn't want to cooperate and my patience was running thin.  We gave up after only 30 minutes!  I had way more outtakes than smiles, but we did walked away with a few that I loved!  Here's my spunky little girl!  Christmas cards are on they're way!  I hope you enjoy the outtakes too!

Thanksgiving Play and Turkey Parade

So this holiday season has been filled with lots of school related fun.  For Thanksgiving Brenna's kindergarten class got to create their very own unique turkey feathers, turkey float, and participate in The First Thanksgiving play.

We worked tirelessly on Brenna's "Rainbow" turkey feather and float.  She did a great job!  They both came out looking great!  After looking over all the feathers and floats, it was very evident which parents did their kids homework and which parents let the kids do their own homework.  I'm pretty sure a kindergartener can't understand the mechanics necessary a equip a turkey float with flashing Christmas lights and a remote control driver!

Proud of her creations! 

Kindergarten School Picture

Here's Brenna's Kindergarten school picture.  I'm not really sure why she didin't smile, but in her case no smile is better than some of her fake smiles!