santa stop here

One of my most favorite annual Christmas traditions is decorating Christmas cookies for Santa! Our tradition has evolved over the years. When the boys were toddlers I would bake homemade sugar cookies from scratch, use cookie cutters to form them into festive shapes and bake dozens and dozens and dozens. It took me all day. There were even years I made homemade icing! Now, though, that the boys are older, I'm working and the boys school and activity schedules keep us extra busy I cheat and buy a tube of sugar cookie dough that you just place on a cookie sheet and bake. AND I purchase canned frosting. The first year I made the switch to "not homemade" I was disappointed in myself but the boys don't care and this way I get to actually enjoy the process instead of stressing myself out over a full day of baking!

One thing HASN'T changed about our cookie decorating tradition and that is that Maddox STILL eats more than he decorates!

The boys each chose one of their own cookies to eat! Notice that Ashtyn's bite is a teeny tiny nibble off the very edge of his cookie while Maddox's bite took half of his cookie! (And he chewed with his mouth open, of course...)

The boys each picked their two favorite cookies to leave out for Santa. They agreed that Santa wanted chocolate milk this year and so we made him a big mug.

Mrs. Clause couldn't wait for Ash and Maddox to fall asleep so she could scarf down that mug of chocolatey goodness (she isn't brave enough to eat any of the boys' cookies...) but poor Mrs. Clause was gravely disappointed when both boys were FINALLY sound asleep, the presents were tucked under the Christmas tree and she was in her PJ's and giddy to drink her chocolate milk. As she took her first sip, Mrs. Clause realized that not only had the milk gone from ice cold to room temperature (Ugh) but she also noticed that someone had accidentally bought sugar free chocolate syrup! What!?!? Bleck. Bleck. Bleck. For whatever reason, Mrs. Clause took one more sip (I guess just to make sure it really didn't taste good...) before dumping the mug of milk down the drain. I have a feeling that this same mistake won't happen to poor Mrs. Clause again in 2014.

I realize that we are living on borrowed time with our boys believing in the magic of Christmas. Ash is 9 this year and Maddox is 7. I don't know if we will have another year of Santa delivering gifts or not and that makes this year both beautiful and memorable and depressing and sad all at the same time. I'm not ready for my boys to lose their childhood innocence. I even like pretending that I still believe in Santa! I have a feeling that even after my boys realize the truth we will still be decorating cookies and leaving them out with a mug of chocolate milk...with full fat, real sugar chocolate syrup of course.