It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

When you start a new business you constantly feel like you're planning for the next thing ahead (at least I do).  That means that I've been singing Christmas carols to get in the Christmas spirit since June.  Well, if I'm totally honest, I never take my favorite Christmas songs off of my normal playlist, but I've been listening to them more intently recently!

I am so very excited to introduce to you today the first Christmas collection for Tales of a Peanut!  I have been working on these for such a long time now and hope that you will enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed creating them!

I'm going to first introduce the "Merry" collection.  A set of four cards that bring back the little girl in me when I think of Christmas.  These are fun and whimsical with lots of bold pattern and colors!

Next, I'll introduce you to the "Joyful" collection.  These cards are more refined and sophisticated and help convey the importance of Christ in Christmas.

Both of these collections will be available in multiple ways.  I will keep some cards in stock to be sold like the "Inspire" sets where they are 4.25" x 5.5" folded cards with a blank interior.  They will start at $20 for a set of 12 of these non-personalized cards in a set of 3 of each design.

You could also choose to personalize them with a message, or even a picture and a message, from your family on the inside.  These would come in a minimum order of 25 of the same design and would cost $35.  Once the 25 card minimum is reached, cards can be added in increments of five and the price would increase as well.

We could also work with you to create any kind of package that you would like out of these designs.  All orders will come with white envelopes and all cards will be printed on the Classic Felt card stock which is very thick and feels very luxurious!

If you're looking for a more custom approach to your Christmas cards, remember that I can create just about anything that you can dream up.  Come back tomorrow for a highlight of some of my favorite pre-made photo card designs!

Christmas Traditions

We have a number of Christmas traditions at our house.  On December 1st, our Elf, Frisbee, arrives from the North Pole.  He does fun things and brings fun gifts over the month before he heads back to the North Pole on Santa's Sleigh on Christmas Eve.

On the first day Frisbee left a letter for the kids and some new Christmas books

The next day he set up everything for the kids to write their letters to Santa!

Charlotte immediately started a letter to Santa!

Frisbee enjoyed hanging out on celebration ornament one day.  We hang this ornament on the tree in years that we beat Auburn.

We were surprised to find Frisbee in Memma and Papa's bed one morning!

And can you believe he was trying to eat the M&M's!

Even though they can't touch Frisbee, Charlotte had no qualms about touching the nativity pieces so that they were looking at Frisbee instead of Frisbee looking at Baby Jesus like he was when we found him that morning.

We found Frisbee one morning relaxing in one of Memma's big jars!

And Frisbee put Papa's National Championship rings on and hugged the crystal footballs one morning!

I didn't do as good of a job taking pictures every day of Frisbee this year but these were some of our favorites!

This year we got to attend the annual Grinch Party.  It includes a reading of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and was a very interesting experience!

Charlotte helped make red velvet cupcakes for Jesus' birthday!  She requested the red velvet cupcakes but was a little concerned when the batter got so red while she was mixing!

Some other traditions that we continued were reading the Christmas story from Luke as the only story before bedtime on Christmas Eve.  We filled Operation Christmas Child boxes.  We got Christmas cards printed with a note that we were praying for the recipient and sent them with our Christmas Child boxes and to our Compassion kids and mailed the others to soldiers overseas.  

Christmas with Memma and Papa

We started opening gifts with Memma and Papa on the 23rd so that we wouldn't be rushed on Christmas Day.  I didn't get a lot of good pictures from that round of opening but I did get these of when Charlotte received two new puppies, Nikki and Gray, from Memma and Papa!  She was so excited!

We continued the gift giving on Christmas morning after looking through Santa's gifts.  It was a long and fun morning!

Charlotte was excited for some new red shoes!

By this point James was exhausted.  We got him some snacks and then put him down for his nap!

We got up after James' naptime and headed to Grandmommy and Pops' for our Christmas celebration.  I failed miserably at taking pictures the rest of the afternoon but we had a great time seeing everyone.  We went back home for naptime and got up and headed to Mama Dean and GrandDaddy's for dinner.  Again, no pictures, but we had fun.  Before we headed out after naps we got a family picture in front of the Christmas tree!

And as we closed the page on Christmas 2012 we snuggled while reading books before bedtime.  We were blessed to get together with all of our families over the holiday's and enjoyed seeing those that we see often and those that we don't.  We're so thankful for Christ's birth and for the opportunity to celebrate it with our families.

Santa came!

On Christmas Eve we set out some cookies, fudge, and milk for Santa in hopes that he would enjoy a little snack and a rest when he arrived.  We also put out reindeer food outside for Rudolph and his friends!

We woke the kids up on Christmas morning (might be our last year of that!) and headed down the stairs to see what Santa brought!

Not only did Santa enjoy his snacks, but Frisbee left a note for Charlotte and James telling them goodbye since he went back to the North Pole in Santa's sleigh!

Charlotte was a little overwhelmed at all of the gifts that Santa brought and all of the people watching, videoing, and taking pictures of her but she was excited!  James was very excited and dug in to his toys!

After checking out what Santa brought we started in on the rest of our busy Christmas Day!

Our Family Christmas

In keeping up with the tradition on this blog, I'm going to blog about things that happened even when they're weeks old.  :)  Bear with me as I try and catch up with all of our Christmas festivities.  Including our Christmas with just the four of us, we have SEVEN Christmas celebrations so the loading of pictures, editing, blogging, etc, is taking longer than I would like.

We ended up doing our "family" Christmas gift exchange after lunch on Christmas Eve.  We wanted to be able to enjoy giving our gifts and didn't want to be rushed, and this also helped spread the gift giving out for the kids.  Also, there were some gifts on Christmas day that were contingent on these gifts so we wanted to get them opened.

Before we started the present opening I made both kids sit together for a picture.  Charlotte still wasn't letting go of her new dog, Nikki, at this point!

And then the unwrapping and the "mama-razzi" and the fake smiles.  Thankfully the enthusasim was not fake.  I couldn't get over how excited Charlotte was for EACH AND EVERY present and she was so good to say thank you!  I was impressed!  And James would get excited about everything too and squeal and stare intently at his presents.  It was so much more feedback than I was anticipating and I loved it!

We got Charlotte a charm bracelet this year.  I had one growing up (ended up with three that are covered with charms) and loved getting to pick out charms for special occasions and having them given to me.  I can tell you details about most every charm that I have and they're so special.  So I wanted to start this tradition for Charlotte.  She was so excited about it and has asked to wear it a lot.  We started her out with the following charms: an elephant, a tap shoe, and a "C" initial.

James wasn't really sure about pulling the paper out of his first present but he was excited about the look of his big construction blocks!

We give Radko ornaments to the kids each year based on something that happened in their life that year.  This is James' from this year: two penguins and a surfboard for his first trip to the beach.

And Charlotte's radko was a ballet dancer since she started dance this year.

James gave us some classic expressions.  Like this one when I interrupted him reading one of his new books!