Living 3 hours from most of our family has provided us with much more visits than the 13-16 hours away that we have lived for all of our boys lives. One of the boys favorite advantages to this is the numerous "Christmases" this provides ... affectionately referred to as "fake Christmas" (a celebration of Christmas on a date, albeit near the actual holiday but on a different date and not the "official" event involving just our immediate family). This year we were able to have 3 "fake Christmases"!"Christmas" came one week early when Aunty Kristin and Uncle Mike stopped by to spend the night on their way to Gatlinburg to celebrate "real" Christmas with Mike's family and it was a White One. Seth scored real cowboy boots and Toby a Buccaneers helmet and jersey. But the highlight was the snowball fight with Uncle Mike and Zoey.
Toby tooks a cold one right in the face
That week ended with "fake Christmas" #2 with Gamma & Gampa and a (real) Christmas Eve, Eve meal featuring a birthday cake for Jesus' with an assist from Ben.
"Real" Christmas began with our tradition of opening one present of new pjs. "Real" Christmas morning was full of more wonderful things -- though ironically we celebrated it on Dec. 26 (cause Santa knows we are Adventist) -- technically making it "fake Christmas" 2.5. However, the "green thing" from cousins Julia, Henry and Patrick (as well as aunt Kerri & uncle Jonathan) may have been the biggest hit.
Our final "fake Christmas" didn't come until three weeks later when PopPop & GiGi returned from real Christmas in France. Again, it was wonderful, everyone loved playing with Ben's infant toy 'spinny' car track.
However, the biggest hit of the holidays had to be, Thelma & Louise ... Hildy & Gerdy ... Dora/Zippy & Fright/Kitty ... or whatever they end up being called.
Fake Christmas makes us smile (especially when we get to have 3)!
