This Christmas season was pretty low-key compared to past years, (such as 2014 when I went insane and did 25 days of toddler Christmas!) Between Hawaii and Utah, we were gone half the month, so we really had to pare down the Christmas fun to the absolute essentials, which I actually preferred since we spent a lot of time at home relishing the true spirit of Christmas and didn’t drive ourselves crazy braving the crowds. We missed the annual Moms of Multiples’ Club Christmas Breakfast and a few of our favorite nativities this year while we were traveling, but in addition to the Christmas Train and Santa’s Village, we still made sweet memories with our family and friends. Sometimes simplicity is best.

I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to get individual pictures of Samantha and Amelia, but these two are stuck at the hip and always refuse individual shots. Here’s their morning dance party while getting ready for their Preschool Pajama Day (a.k.a. every kid’s favorite day of the year).

On Pajama Day, the girls enjoyed hot chocolate and were excited to chat with Santa, although they would never admit it in a picture.

Meredith was disappointed she didn’t get to partake in the hot chocolate and was bored while her entertainment was away at preschool in the morning.

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This was the first year Elfie made an appearance at our house for the Christmas season. I was skeptical of the Elf on a Shelf craze in past years, but I must admit, Elfie was a huge hit with the twins and they would race out of bed in the morning and through the front door whenever we went somewhere to see what Elfie was doing while they were gone. Our boring Elf pretty much moved from shelf to shelf most of the time, but a few times managed to do something more creative, like having a tea party with dolls, hanging from the chandelier, or being frozen in a block of ice.

Elfie brought an early Christmas present for Samantha and Amelia– personalized aprons, about which they were ecstatic. We christened them by decorating eating all the candy on a gingerbread house.

I don’t even want to know what kinds of toxic food coloring and carcinogens were lurking in their candy.

Our real life baby Elf on a Shelf!

My friends, Sheela and Phi, hosted a holiday Favorite Things party, which was fun for the holidays because we all went home with some cute items and got great ideas for gifts in the future.

Aunt Linda and Uncle David visited to drop off their annual load of yummy cookies and fudge, plus presents.

Meredith couldn’t contain her excitement!

We’ve been experimenting with Jamberry nail wraps the past few months ever since my sister-in-law became the CEO. The twins love their Christmas designs.

Thanks to the girls’ preschool teachers, one of the best parts about the holidays this year was receiving some homemade gifts. Amelia gifted me a burlap banner with her foot and handprint angel and a glass ornament with her handprint, while Samantha made a Rudolph-inspired mason jar filled with muddy buddy mix she made herself. I didn’t get a picture of the jar filled with the mix because it was gone devoured in a flash. Art projects involving body parts and paint is not an easy task when you’ve got a bunch of preschoolers roaming around (I went in to volunteer with a few art projects in December and could barely handle one kid at a time), so kudos to the preschool teachers for their hard work.

Jake sat down with the girls and helped them make salt dough hand print ornaments for keepsakes as well. Meredith’s other homemade gifts included creating food messes.

I’m not sure if it was all the sugar, or the proximity to Santa’s arrival, but during the last week of preschool before the break, the excitement was palpable. The craziness culminated in a Christmas sing-along, for which the girls had been practicing at home non-stop (Amelia’s favorite was Jingle Bells, while Samantha loved Frosty), but were shy for the actual production. Meredith wiggled and giggled through the sing-along and was so proud of her sisters.

The 3-6-year-olds brought down the house!

The twins sang the Dreidel song all the time at home and Amelia was excited to announce she tried sour cream and like it when someone from her class brought latkes, applesauce and sour cream (not as good as Great Auntie Lynn’s latkes, but Amelia said they were still delish). They also played dreidel and the winners received Hanukkah gelt (chocolate coins). “I was soooooo good at spinning the dreidel!” exclaimed Amelia, happy about all the gelt she won when I picked her up. In addition to winning chocolate coins during the dreidel game, Amelia was also proud that she won Christmas Bingo too. I find it hilarious that the twins rarely follow rules when I try to teach them games at home (I refuse to play Candy Land or Red Light Green Light with them because they always cheat!), but somehow at preschool, they actually follow the group norms.

The twins started out strong and then zoned out for the rest. Samantha was a little overwhelmed by all the attention and threw herself, crying, into Daddy’s arms after the show.

By the time their grand finale of Jingle Bells rolled around, all the kids were restless and going crazy.

The kids sang a few other songs, but I was too occupied wrestling with a wiggly Meredith to capture the rest. I would be that every one of the parents’ hearts were bursting at the cuteness of all the kids singing (or staring off into space) together and the sing-along will go down as one of my favorite parts of Christmas!

Lots of love,