Christmas Countdown Paper Chain, Part II

Something sad about this Christmas is that Maggie figured out the truth about Santa. It started innocently enough when she asked if the tooth fairy was really parents. I told her the truth and that was that. Then, about two weeks later she asked if Santa was like the tooth fairy. I asked her what she meant and she said, "Is Santa your parents? Because it seems like Santa is really your parents." I sort of put her off and meanwhile tried to figure out what to say to her. Finally Grant and I told her that yes, Santa is really parents, and that it's just like a fun game to play and we were going to keep playing it with her and Finn and Carolina. Luckily they're too young to know one way or the other but when they're old enough to know I want to do all the fun Santa stuff with them, too. Maggie wasn't upset at all and took it in stride. I also made her promise not to tell anyone at school, church, or her cousins, and she kept her promise. I just can't believe she figured it out so early! I thought we had several years left before she found out.
Another one of our Christmas activities was going to see the lights and decorations at Opryland Hotel. We HAVE to go every year and this year on the day I had scheduled us to go it actually snowed enough to close down the roads. Then Grant was out of town and things got away from us until the week after Christmas, but I feel like we squeezed it on so my tradition is still intact. We even found a top secret free parking lot (I won't tell you where it was but I will say we didn't get towed and didn't have to pay the outrageous $20 parking fee). Maggie always loves to see the giant outdoor nativity scene (you can kind of see it behind them, below).One day's Christmas activity was the Christmas pageant at our church. (PS-If you go to our church's website you might see someone familiar on the home page, although this familiar person may be in an unfamiliar person's arms.) This year was super exciting for Maggie because she was upgraded from lowly sheep to heavenly angel. Here she is as an angel with her friend, Adie.
In other exciting pageant news, the role of baby Jesus was played by none other than our sweet Carolina! My friend Susan's daughter was Mary and she did a great job with Carolina. Carolina was peacefully gazing around for the first half and then when she started fussing halfway through I got her back from Mary.After the pageant the children had birthday parties for Jesus in their Sunday School classes. Here's Maggie with Mimi right before her party.Some of our other fun activities included decorating a gingerbread house, making cookies for Santa, making Christmas cards for friends, wrapping Christmas presents, decorating the house, baking treats to take to our neighbors, and painting Maggie's fingernails red and green (see below). It was so much fun and I plan on doing it again every year.