A Christmas miracle and some cuteness

This is the first time Jack has ever sat on Santa's lap. When his name was called, he popped right up and climbed on. It was probably the lure of that big box Santa had. At our preschool, each child's parent brings a $5.00 gift for their own child and drops it off in the office and then Santa makes a "surprise" appearance and pulls out all the gifts. Then they all wait patiently until everyone has their gift and they all open them together. Seriously, the are very patient. Of course, they are in the presence of Santa so who is going to throw a fit!? Anyway, Jack's gift was a nutcracker. The Christmasy kind that looks like a Santa. Much to the surprise of the other moms, he loved it. He loves those things! Strange kid. And, many of the other kids thought it was pretty darn cool too. Last night Parker was giving Jack the lowdown on how the Christmas party works at the co-op. He was there for 3 years, after all, so he knows the routine pretty darn well. It is supposed to be a surprise when Santa shows up but Jack definitely knew what was coming. I don't think he clued all the other kids in though.

These are the gift bags I made for Parker's class. They turned out so darn cute that I just had to share. The parents hooked these kids up! They had a ton of goodies! They were also a big help at the party. Lucky me! I should also mention that even though our children are certainly spoiled, they did decorate gift bags for residents of a local nursing home and loaded those down with tons of candy, pens, pencils, notepads, lotions, tissue--you name anything that a nursing home resident would want (other than their youth, of course) and we did our best to provide it. Five of the classes did this and we made 150 bags. Cool, huh? Hopefully next year we can expand this to do another nursing home.
I made a few different kinds of cake balls and packaged them up for our neighbors and friends. Can you tell I'm loving the red/lime green combo for Christmas this year?
And these two little elves delivered them. They were so excited to go out on a snowy night by themselves. (I watched from the door!) It was totally their idea to wear the hats! LOVE it!
I just noticed the handprint on the window and that it looks like Parker is carrying a purse. That is Indiana Jones' pouch for those of you who are not familiar with the finer details of those movies.