Maria had some big changes this year: Not only did she move into a new house in Houston, TX but her little family of 3 grew to 4 as they welcomed their first son in September! We’ll be excited to see Maria as she’s visiting family in Atlanta over the holidays. Here are some of her favorite holiday traditions.
This is my absolute favorite time of year! I love the temperature changes (well, somewhat living here in Texas), the Christmas music, the decorations, the lights, and the shopping! Having two little kids under the age of 3 makes this time of year even more exciting for us. We are just starting to establish our own family traditions. Growing up, we did a lot of things that we will continue to do in our family. Some of the traditions that we will carry on with include having a very festive Christmas Eve, where we have appetizers and open up gifts from each family member. We also enjoy attending church prior to the festivities.
When I was little, we also used to decorate Christmas cookies and this was something we always looked forward to. We actually just did this with our daughter, Abigail for the first time. This is a splurge that we will include this time of year! One other fun thing we have done this year was welcome the Elf on the Shelf to our household. He is always hiding somewhere new and it really is a fun thing to do as our little girl wakes up each morning looking for her elf, Ewan.
Living in Houston, we live away from my family, so we have been joining them in Atlanta at Christmas time the past several years. We look forward to celebrating with them again this year! You’ll notice in the Santa pic that Abigail is absent as she is not very fond of him. Our son, Wesley, participated quite well though! The stocking picture was captured just before Abigail decided to let go of Wesley and my husband had to do a diving catch to grab him before he hit the ground! Good times!
Merry Christmas and wishing you all a fabulous 2012! Maria 
