Our Favorite Christmas Traditions

I think one of the best things we’ve ever bought for our family was buy a membership to meijer gardens in grand rapids. It has so many activities in the summer and in the winter provides a nice warm place to soak up some green plant life amongst the snow. It even has an awesome play place for otto to run around in and burn off some steam. We received an email earlier this month that they were having reindeer on the Saturdays leading up to Christmas. Otto is finally learning and understanding more about Santa Claus that we had to take him to see one of Santa’s reindeer.

We made this as part of our “Christmas Date” Joe and I go on two Christmas themed dates a year. One dates all the way back to college and the other is well.. since Otto. Our tradition since college is Joe and I go out one evening and tie up the loose ends of our Christmas shopping. Getting the final gifts, ribbons and tape and once that is done to celebrate the end of our shopping we go out for a nice dinner just the two of us. The one with Otto typically involves seeing santa but our “going to see santa outfit” has not arrived yet. (blogmom life). So we kicked off our day with a big breakfast at The Biscuit in Holland. I had amazing almond marscarpone french toast and Joe an omelet. They even made Otto a Mickey Mouse shaped pancake.

After our breakfast we headed to The Found Cottage for small business Saturday to say hi to our friends and see how the store was going before heading off to the gardens to see the deer. The second we got to meijer gardens otto took off running around looking at all the Christmas trees from around the world. We bundled up and walked outside to meet Santa’s backup reindeer, Sven. Otto was obsessed…as long as Sven was laying down. Otto thought it was so cool to see him and even wanted to pet him (yea I know he’s still scared of binks and butters but not the giant deer). That changed pretty quickly when Sven decided to stand up and say hello. We were done with the deer at that point.

After the deer we headed towards home to pick up our Christmas tree. Our neighbors grow them on the property next door and their lot is just up the road. It’s fun to get a tree from next door! We stopped to pick up a few groceries for dinner that night and put up our tree and the lights. We saved the ornaments for later.

We ended our day with baked macaroni and cheese by the fire and checking off our Christmas to do list. Next up hanging the garland outside!