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It is the most wonderful time of the year…or so they say. As you are well aware, if you know me, I can’t stand the holidays: by December, I am already sick of the holiday music, displays and fake “happiness”. I don’t like the stress, the pretense, the feel good commercials, the lack of time. However, having a young child does bring back some of the holiday magic, as there are so many activities and events to go to and just looking at Keegan’s eyes light up at the light makes my cynical heart a little softer.

It has been a busy season: three weeks packed full of fun stuff. We kicked off the season with Christmas tree shopping the day after Keegan’s birthday. We stuck to our little tree format (5-6 feet). It is so much easier to decorate and deal with, especially since it is MY job to prepare it. Of course it sat naked for a few days, but we got it under control. We used the same color scheme than last year: blue, white and silver.

Since Keegan made a few foam ornaments, we got him his own little tree to decorate. It was on his room, and it looked really cute.

This year I even did some small decorating in the house, and outside. We bought some lights to complement the modern tree (that Matt does not really care for) and I hung some tinsel, wreaths and snowflakes…Not much, but a big step for me.

Of course we brought back our Elf On The Shelf. You may remember him from last year: it is a creepy little doll that supposedly spies on your kids for Santa, and then report back every day to the big man. Every day he needs to be moved in a different location, since he flew back in from the North Pole. A major pain. I know I am not alone in feeling this, as you can read in this really funny post on overachiever Elf on The Shelf moms, from the blog People I Want To Punch In The Throat. ( a really funny blog, by the way).

the night before Christmas. Bye bye Fifi.

I have to say that this year it has a little less effect, as Keegan was not convinced he could really see everything he was doing. However, he is attached to the little guy, so we will probably bring him back again next year.

To avoid the huge crowds, I decided to bring Keegan to see Santa early on, on December 8. I am not really sure what Keegan makes out of Santa. He knows about him, but I am not really sure he believes in him 100%. He asked me one day, why a Santa we saw looked different from the Santa we took picture with, and at Christmas he thanked us for the presents. In any case, we went for the obligatory picture. Santa was bored out of his skull, being Wednesday afternoon, and was very friendly and ready to talk. Keegan was a little shy, but loved the candy cane.

We made an afternoon out of it, since Santa’s cottage is next to the kids’ area, complete with little trains and bouncies. This was one of the many Santa’s we posed with this year.

The following weekend, we went to Legoland. It was a beautiful, warm sunny San Diego day, but they set us a snow zone, so Keegan got to play in the real snow (well, probably blown in, but so it is the snow at most California ski locations anyway). He had so much fun throwing snowballs, building a snowman and sliding down a small slope.

There was also a Lego Santa Claus, and we just had to take a picture with him.

We stopped by the Star Wars area to check out the amazing reproductions. Amazing…

like father like son…

Keegan even got the chance to drive his own Lego car, and received a “driver license”.

We had the chance to watch some amazing light displays as well. Even if we missed the Del Mar display, we stopped by our Clairemont ones, and enjoyed the show. This is the third year we are going, and it still amazes us. We also went back to watch the Parade Of Lights, the boat light show. We set up on the Shelter Island beach and watched the amazing boats floating by.Unfortunately, due to the recent litigation, there were no fireworks, but we still enjoyed the show.

We attended all the holiday office parties this year: we were lucky our sitter was available for both, back to back. First, we went to Matt’s office party on Saturday night. It was in a posh downtown hotel. A good excuse to get dressed up. Amazingly enough we won a prize in the raffle. Granted, it was a digital camera (and not the blue ray player our table mates got or the Ipad2), and we already have more than two, but still it was amazing to win anything at all. We NEVER win at raffles.

getting ready for a night on the town

The following morning, we headed up to my company party, an elegant brunch in another posh downtown hotel. It was, as always, great. Amazing food, good company and free flowing champagne. It was so good, I crashed as soon I made it home. (-:

We could not leave Seaworld out: they had special decorations and shows for Christmas. They also had a snow area, but it was not quite as fun as Legoland. Mainly, they did not let kids younger than 5 slide down, so Keegan got bored pretty quickly.

how should I play with this white stuff?

oh, I get it. I will just throw a huge snow ball

We watched the sharks, and the cool decorations, including the over-sized sleigh and Christmas tree, we hugged mascots, and checked out real reindeer.

Christmas Otter

Santa’s sleight

real reindeer

We also watched the Christmas Shamu show, at the light of the huge luminaries. As always, I was taken aback by the highly religious tone of the show.

This year, we also went to another Christmas celebration, a new event in Liberty Station, right where we had Keegan’s birthday party. I had a discount coupon, so we headed there one afternoon. They had many booths, food, a Christmas tree forest, a couple of stages, a small snow area and a kid zone. Once again, Keegan had a blast sliding down the small slope and he did it over and over and over again…till he got a little hurt, and then refused to do it again.

flying down the slope

We watched some girls sing and dance, and even a little piece of the Nutcracker. In the kid zone, there was a really awesome ride: huge, inflatable balls, floating on a pool of water. Keegan got inside, they blew it up, and he rolled and played, and rolled on the water. It looked like a lot of fun. I wished I could be in there.

We also watched a live nativity scene, which really impressed him. He really liked it, maybe because by now he is pretty familiar with the story of baby Jesus, also thanks to a story my mom recorded for him. It was definitely an interesting event, but it felt a little overpriced for what it was.

We also dedicated ourselves to “Christmas activities”, like decorating an over-sized gingerbread cookie, a present from his friend Van, and baking sugar cookies. While our baking was not too sophisticated, it was still fun.

I can surely say that this year we lived the holiday season much more intensely. Keegan was a lot more excited about it…in fact, he was in an over-excited state since his birthday, which also meant a lot more acting out and misbehaving. However,  it was a lot of fun to share so many interesting activities together.

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