Laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, school work, buying presents-these are the things that occupy my mind these days. Thank goodness for the kids, who remind me to slow down and enjoy the simple things like Christmas lights. Andrew was so excited to put our tree up-he'd been waiting for weeks by the time we finally made it to the tree farm to find the perfect one. After wading through the snow for quite awhile, we put the kids back in the car drove down a little bit, got back out and found one that seemed to fit the bill. That 
night, we decorated. The kids had lots of fun looking through the ornaments and finding their favorites. For Andrew, that means ALL his train ornaments. So many in fact that he's decided he needs a little tree just for his train ornaments. For Sophia, it means her dancer, sled she made at daycare with her picture on it, and of course her Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz. Most the ornaments they put on themselves end up along the bottom and eventually need to be moved (along with some of Erik's ornaments that get relegated to the back of the tree). And then it was time to turn off the lights and watch the tree lights. Andrew was in heaven. The next morning, he requested the lights to be on, sat down and just watched them. He didn't want to go to daycare, crying "I'm not ready yet." Give the kid a tree, some lights and that's all he needed. Simple.
Santa Claus. You know-the jolly old guy in the red suit that is at every mall right now? We were out shopping the other night and meltdown time was setting in. Andrew didn't want to leave the train table at Sears (big surprise) and Sophia wanted tennis shoes. Sophia and I came out of the store we were in and found ourselves right by Santa. I didn't think anything of it-Santa is all over at this time of year and we'd be seeing him in a few weeks at Kowalskis. However, Sophia wanted to stop and see him right then and there. It wasn't enough to merely look at him while other kids got to sit on his lap and whisper what they wanted. The magic of Christmas-and I wanted to rush her past it to get to another destination. I probably should have let her take a seat on his lap. She's got some convincing to do that she's been good this year. It didn't help matters that she decided to throw a tantrum about not seeing him right in front of him. So far this year, the whole "Santa is watching" is not working its wonders in the Hansen household.
Keep it simple. Enjoy the sights, smells and sounds of Christmas. Don't get so wrapped up in the buying of presents that you forget the greatest presents of all-family and the memories you create with them. I am going to try to take the sage advice of a 3 and 5 year old.
