Rudolph the Underdog

A conversation we had today went something like this:
Hudson says " I like Rudolph".
I say, "Why, 'cause he's the coolest?"
H: "No, because he's the saddest."
N: "Why is he the saddest?"
H: "Because the other reindeer call him names. But Santa likes him and is nice to him."
N: "So you want to be nice to him, too?"
H: "Yeah"

I love how serious and thought provoking Christmas has become for this kid. I've been able to use the "you better not pout, I'm telling you why" line so many times and it works like a charm. Hudson also voluntarily cleaned house this morning to "make room for Santa to come". He's asked several times about our fireplace and where is our chimney?
He's been obsessed with the countdown to Christmas. We have a chain, a chocolate advent calendar, and a Santa's beard countdown, and he makes sure to do each of them diligently each day.
What's blown me away the most is he's been saying "I don't care what I get for Christmas." Or he's been asking me what he should ask Santa for. I thought every 5 year old knew exactly what they wanted for Christmas!?

Merry Christmas!

December Fun

This December I wanted to do some kind of fun winter/Christmas activity with Hudson or as a family everyday. It hasn't gone so well, but we did manage to start out with making gingerbread houses, since that was something Hudson was really wanting to do.

We had Jeff's side of the family's kid's Christmas party. We had a really hard time getting everyone together this year, and it was kind of a last minute party, but it turned out to be good anyway.

Santa even came and brought a present for each kid. Hudson was still a little reluctant to sit on Santa's lap this year, but at least there were no tears...even a smile!

I would say this was the first big snowfall that Hudson put on all his snow gear and went to go play out in the snow. On this day he accomplished one of the fun activities I had planned for the month. I filled a spray bottle with water and food coloring so he could go spray colors in the snow. He LOVED it and used his bottle up in minutes.

I think it was later that day that Jeff took Hudson sledding at the Peteetneet school. I had never been sledding there before and I loved that they played Christmas music from speakers. They have the perfect hills there...aka not too steep and scary.

Every year Jeff's Uncle Les and Aunt Nancy have a hay ride. It used to be a horse drawn sleigh ride, but it is now a tractor pulled hay ride, with Christmas lights and everything. While you are waiting for your ride, they have a big army tent with a stove to keep it warm, hot chocolate, and bags of popcorn and suckers. It's so fun.

This year they even had a little train for the kids to ride in. Hudson loved it.

Hopefully we'll be able to squeeze in a few more of the activities we had planned. I can't believe Christmas is only a week away!