Christmas Recap

It's been a week now since Christmas and I'm barely feeling like things are "back to normal". AudioDad's been busy taking the trees down and putting decorations away. The holidays were fun with Munch being able to participate more- not sure how much she really understood, but she went with it okay.
The day before Christmas we headed off to Jelly Belly for Munch's first Santa visit. I've been carefully preparing her (don't want a crying kid!) with Santa stories and waving at the mall Santa whenever we walked by. She was so excited as we waited in line, but got a little shy once she got closer. Munch did great though, making sure to tell Santa she wanted a pink bike with a basket.



For Christmas Eve dinner, I tried a new recipe off C. Beth's blog for Indian fry bread.



It was delicious and easy! We spread them with black beans, added toppings, and ate them taco-style. After dinner, the Munchkin made a plate of cookies for Santa-



then we mixed up some reindeer food (oatmeal with sparkly pink sugar sprinkles)



to sprinkle on the lawn-



Munch said goodbye to Doodle and scampered off to bed. The next morning, she got up nice and early. She carefully arranged all her presents on the coffee table as she opened them-



and one of Grandma's gifts made us all giggle-



a nice, big roll of bubble wrap for dancing on!

Naughty or Nice?

At Aunt Gina's suggestion, Santa has sent one of his elves to keep an eye on the Munchkin's behavior in these days before Christmas.



The package that arrived on our doorstep was covered with stamps from around the world and a special box inside bore Santa's official seal.



Inside was Munch's very own special elf, whom she named Doodle (or occasionally calls him Google), whose task it is to watch Munch's behavior and report back to Santa every night (how else could he know who's been good or bad?) I can see how this would motivate some kids to behave extra well. Munch is an interesting one though. Overall, we've been REALLY lucky with her behavior. She is well-mannered and quiet in public (other than singing along to grocery store music), she gets along well with other kids (no hitting or other antisocial behavior), and like AudioDad, is generally content and easy-going. I'm lucky that most of her good behavior is intrinsic, because when it comes to listening to me, Munch likes to test the limits. We used time-outs occasionally earlier in the year (shortly after she turned two), but she quickly realized that if she was willing to do the time, she could do the crime. There went time-outs.

So I was curious to see if Doodle/Google would have any effect on her. (Lately our issue is that she's incredibly SLOW at the dinner table, picking at her food just to see what our reaction will be.) So far, she likes greeting him in the morning wherever he appears and checking in with him when we come home and before she goes to bed. What's a little concerning is that, as we drove home this evening, Munch told me all about how she'd be telling Doodle how naughty she was today since she didn't plan to eat her dinner when we got home. I think we're going to have to work on this naughty/nice thing a little bit more... It's a cute idea- it seems to be working better on Munch's cousin A. If you want to check it out, go to The Elf on the Shelf.

On a related note, I found out about another fun site that gives you proof of Santa's visit on Christmas Eve- check out Capture the Magic. Here's the photo that we'll show Munch on Christmas morning of Santa putting presents under our tree!