Not So Jolly Ol' St. Nick

Yesterday afternoon we opted to take a little family field trip, and start a new Christmas tradition. When Mitch and I started dating back in our high school days, he introduced me to the downtown Minneapolis Macy's 8th floor Christmas display. Macy's has been turning their auditorium into an incredible Christmas production for years. Unfortunately over the last few years, the theme has stayed the same - A Day in the Life of an Elf. Before 2008, each year they would wow us with a new theme and Christmas scenes. Even though the theme remains the same, we thought it would be a fun family outing plus we could get Harper's very first Santa photo. 

We made our way through Macy's Santaland, and admired the festive scenes. Harper seemed to enjoy herself, and giggled at a few of the moving elves. After perusing the Elves workshop, we stopped at the end to have Harper meet Santa. We walked through the curtain into Santa's room, and immediately she hugged me a little tighter. She gave him the "who the heck are you" look, and was a little uneasy when I placed her on his lap. Santa was all business - no "ho ho ho, Merry Christmas" or "what do you want little girl". He pretty much held out his arms, put Harper on his knee and sat there with a stone face while his little helper "elf" snapped a few photos. After 5 snaps of the camera, he handed me a pin and we were on our merry way. 

We chose the best photo we had to choose from - with her belly showing and tugging on Santa's hat. There were no tears, just unsure looks coming from Harper. Overall she was quite the trooper for her first Santa experience.

This past weekend we also had our first snow of the year. We woke up Sunday morning to fresh white powder covering every inch of our yard, trees, streets... you name it. We made our way to church, and actually arrived on-time even though the roads were messy. We dropped Harper off in the nursery, and made our way in. We made it 15 minutes before our pager buzzed calling one of us to the nursery. Mitch went down while I stayed and listened to the choir. I noticed he was gone for quite some time and when he came back he had Harper on his hip. It was the same ol' thing, she was fine when he was in there playing with her but as soon as he stood up to leave she melted down. We'll continue to try out the nursery and hopefully make it a little longer each time. Baby steps, right?

Sunday we also realized how thankful we are for our snowblower. With roughly 10-12 inches falling we had to snowblow and shovel twice. We even let Harper play in the snow a little before we cleared the driveway. She wasn't sure what she was laying in, but loved it! She rolled and crawled around in the fresh snow, and even had a little taste. I see snow angels, snowmen and sledding in our future and I don't know who is more excited!

With old man Winter making his entrance, it also brought terrible commutes to work. I think I've spent more time in the car this week than I have in a very long time. A normal commute time from our house in Maple Grove to REACH in Eden Prairie is about 25 minutes. The last 3 mornings I've spent over an hour driving to work, and even longer on my way home. I know, I know "It's Minnesota" and "You should expect this in the Winter." I don't remember traffic being this terrible for three consecutive days - and after spending 7+ hours in my car this week and it's only Wednesday I feel like I can gripe a little. I try to take a few deep breaths and enjoy My Talk 107.1 in the parking lot that is 494, since there isn't much I can do about the situation. I'm hopeful tomorrow morning I can go over 40 mph on the highway! Oh winter.

I'm looking forward to this weekend so much! Friday we're getting together with the Helleen's, Schumer's, Dunnwald's and Fodstad's for the annual Yankee Swap Christmas. It's so fun to get everyone together for dinner and have a little family fun gift swapping competition. Plus, Saturday our baby girlie is turning 1!! I can hardly believe Harper will be 1 this weekend - where did the last 12 months go? Friends and family are coming over to help us celebrate, and we're ready to party Sesame Street style!

Until next time...
The Helleen's