Christmas Lights

Tonight we bundled up in our PJ's, made some steamed milk and got in the van to check out Christmas lights. As always, we got into the whole Santa discussion with the girls. I'm not usually a 'Jesus is the Reason for the Season' or 'Keep the Christ in Christmas' kinda gal. I do say Merry Christmas as opposed to Seasons Greetings, but there is something about Santa that I resist. I like the St. Nick story, but that is as far as it goes. We've never done Santa pictures with the girls, or given gifts to them from Santa. In fact, we've stolen a line from friend's dad who used to tell his kids that Santa was a big, fat phoney!

I don't mind if people do the Santa thing, it's just not for us. And we teach the girls to respect other kids and their views around Christmas. The last thing I need is for some kid to freak out if the girls ruined the Santa thing for them! So when the girls were pushing this year for ALL the things they wanted from Santa, I responded that if they wanted to count on Santa this year for their gifts that was fine by me...it meant I could take it easy! There was silence from the back seat. Then I heard a voice say, Forget it Mom, Santa is just a big, fat phoney!

Here's our 'Santa' picture. This house had a dancing Santa in the window that just cracked the girls up!

Some houses were amazing. One guy from our church has over 12000 lights!