Blogger Holiday Gift Exchange

You guys, did you know there's only ONE WEEK until Christmas?  What the hell?  How did this happen? Why did no one think to tell me that there are only a few more shopping days left and I had better get my shit together.  Where did the rest of December go?  I am NOT READY!

Not only am I not ready for Christmas to be here, I'm not ready for this holiday season to be over. I'm having so much fun this year doing all the holiday stuff with the kids.  The last few years I've been so "bah humbug" about the holidays.  Last year I was in my first trimester with Mim and so exhausted I just didn't have the energy to do much of anything.  The year before that, Mac was too little to understand Christmas, so we skipped the holiday completely and spent a week in the islands. And the year before that I was in a pretty serious infertility-induced funk because I wanted a baby so badly that I couldn't deal with the holidays at all.  Oh, how times have changed and how blessed we are now. So, this is the first year is quite a while I've really felt the holiday spirit and I'm totally loving it!  I think there's something about experiencing it all with Mac and seeing the magic through his eyes that makes it all the more wonderful.  I've been trying to give him a Christmas experience that will make him love the holiday as much as I did when I was a kid.  I think the only thing better than being a kid at Christmas, is having a kid at Christmas.  

As I mentioned before, this year we participated in a couple different Secret Santa swaps.  This time, Elizabeth from Chasin' Mason and Meghan from The Adventure Starts Here organized a swap between a few bloggers with toddlers all around Mac's age.  It's always fun shopping for someone else, packing their gift and shipping it off across the country.  Mac helped me pick out a couple really fun things for Liam, son of Laura from Tiny Toes, Little Nose.  We chose of a few of Mac's favorite things and we hope Liam loves them as much as we do.  

We were also pretty excited to get our gift, from the amazing Tara at A Tale of Four Maples.  She put together a care package gift that our whole family could enjoy, complete with Christmas movies, hot chocolate, gummy penguins and chocolate chip cookies.  The snacks lasted about a day before they were gone.  We loved them! 

Don't let his sour look fool you, he was thrilled with the gifts.  He's not thrilled with my camera.

I'm so excited to get the Christmas classics movies.  

This is exactly what we got Liam because it's so awesome! 

I think Mac was most excited about the gummy penguins.  He hasn't stopped asking and talking about them. I actually had to hide them so he wouldn't eat the whole bag in a day. 

Thanks so much Tara!  

Check out the other bloggers to see what everyone else got. 

Laura - tiny toes, little nose
Ashley - Words About Waverly
Laureen - Chateau Deveau
Meghan F. - The Adventure Starts Here
Elizabeth - Chasin' Mason
Megan B. - Willow Crowns
Erin - Hello Erin
Tawnya - All of Life's Little Adventures
Tara - A Tale of Four Maples
Sara - Running from the Law