Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

Christmas is coming up at a rate of knots and with all the festivities going on around Calgary it is difficult to keep up and even more difficult to decide what to go and take part in. We went to Heritage Park on Sunday. They do The Twelve Days of Christmas every year. It was lovely. The day started off chilly but it got really nice. How nice, 0 degrees nice. Can you imagine wondering why it is so warm and finding out it is 0! Nope, neither could I, but it happened. Anyway, they had Santa on the train for the kiddies to meet. We gave that a skip because of Jared's last encounter with the man in red. We still live in hope of getting a nice pic in one of the malls with Santa so we don't want to totally scare him. :o) We did a hayride though, that was great. There was an outdoor skating rink which was fun to watch. The kiddies start skating here as early as 2 so it is really adorable. It is very easy to make a skating rink here, all you need is a body of water and the rest is self made. Seriously!!! There was also a lovely Christmas Market with all sorts of quaint little goodies for sale. My favourite was a kiddies only section where your children can go and buy a Christmas present for their parents. No parents are allowed in that stall. There are adults to help the kiddies on the other side with their shopping.

We put up our Christmas tree yesterday afternoon when Jared woke up from his nap after getting home. It was fun and Jared was actually very good. He of course insisted on helping (which was the idea) which was really cute. He gets an ornament and rests it on a branch, steps back, pats his chest looking very proud and says "there you go". If he drops something he is very quick to pick it up and tell you "I got it". He is honestly so adorable. 100% edible. Being our first real family Christmas we are working very hard at starting some of our own traditions. One of which is buying a special ornament for Jared every year. When he leaves home one day he can then take all his ornaments with him for his own family tree and hopefully he will have some really special memories attached to each year. This year he got a bear in a stocking on which we had his name and the year painted. He saw it for the first time last night and was really enamoured with it. He kissed it and told us "cute" and then just wouldn't put it on the tree. He would think about it and then decide otherwise. He was very funny. We have decided against putting out any presents just yet because Mr Chatterbox will definitely get stuck into those. They are staying in the basement until the 24th. Oh, and our tree topper is too big! He is gorgeous though so we have decided that he will be an ornament instead.

I think that's all the news for now. Here come all the pics xxx

This was taken on the hayride

Our little helper "hanging" the ornaments. You can see one of the bears he hung lying on the branch. (If you double click the pics they enlarge just in case you never knew)

The finished tree, except for our tree topper which we need to go and buy still.

Jared's special ornament

Oooohhhh!!! You're kinda cute Mr Bear!

So cute in fact that I think I'll kiss you.

And now I'll put you with on the tree with the other bears so you won't be lonely.

Jared's stocking that we have hanging on the fireplace mantle.

Our treetop Santa who is now an ornament because he is too big

The fireplace which is a work in progress. I will show you another pic once it's done