Holiday Traditions: Tomball style

Before leaving town for the holidays we made sure to have some fun around here.  Although we were pretty busy with normal life, we tried to do a variety of christmasy things to force us to slow down and  enjoy the holiday season.  It can be hard when the weather is still sunny and warm to realize that it is, in fact, December. But the mild weather allowed for many outdoor activities and some new holiday traditions were born! Brooke especially loved all the twinkling lights we saw and hated with a burning passion all of the real life Santas we saw.  All in all, a success!

Sorry most of the pictures are blurry.  Camera phones and Christmas lights apparently don't mix well. 

We went christmas shopping at the mall and then walked thru Santa's wonderland outside.  There was a giant tree and lots of light up characters.

Ward Christmas Party.  The ward decided to take family pictures for our ward website that night, so this picture is now the new face of the Smith family. It was not an ugly Christmas sweater event, but Brett pulled his out to the joy and amusement of all involved! 

Santa: take one. At the ward Christmas party 

Santa: take two. At the Tomball Christmas festival.   I let her walk to see if she would feel more comfortable.  Nope.  Stop, drop, and become a rock.  Well-played Brooke. 

Santa: take three.  At the German festival. This one, although not your typical Santa, still bore enough resemblance that Brooke cowered in fear of the old man with the beard. 

Strangely enough she still LOVED all things fake Santa.  Her stuffed Santa toy, her Santa books, even large pictures of Santa on buildings.  As long as they weren't alive, she would "ho-ho-ho" happily all day long.

While at the Christmas festival in town we went to the kiddy area and Brooke loved watching the animals.  She kept her distance at first but eventually warmed up.  Until one mischievous little goat decided to jump up and lick her face.  No tears, but we had to back away again.  

 The neighborhoods of all neighborhoods. I looked online to see if I could find a good neighborhood to drive around and see Christmas lights. And I found it! Only 10 minutes away is a HUGE neighborhood that is FULL of lights.  They have competitions and awards and endless streets of magical lights.  I was worried Brooke would get bored and wasn't sure how much she would be able to see but based on the number of times she scream  "oo ooo ohhh!!" and "ho ho ho" (her word for anything Christmas related) I am guessing she loved it.  This one definitely made it on to our holiday traditions list.

We also ventured downtown to see Zoo Lights at the Houston zoo.  It is after hours, so there aren't many animals out but we got lucky and saw the elephants right at the beginning.  At that point, making an elephant noise was one of Brooke's newest tricks so that was fun to show her a live one.