Decking our New Halls

We had our Christmas decorations up and the holiday music playing before our Thanksgiving leftovers were completed... Considering we never really stopped talking about Christmas since we celebrated it last year, the excitement is positively palpable in our home.

Last Saturday, Nick begrudgingly put aside his plans to calibrate the new scope on his new hunting rifle to help me "winterize" the backyard.  I knew I needed to make it up to him and the kiddos, so we spent the latter part of the day eating out at Five Guys and watching the downtown Clarksville Christmas parade and strolling past the Riverfront light display....

Emmy is music-obsessed, so the all high school marching band left quite the impression...

 ...but not as much as seeing Santa and Mrs. Claus ride in the sleigh float.

We kept the girls up late so they could see the lights at Riverfront park. :)

I realized that Nick and I don't have any recent pictures of just the two of us.  So what do I do?  Ask Emmy to take a picture of us from her stroller...She took a bunch of photos, this the only one where you can see both of our upper bodies.

This past Friday night, we stopped off at Starbucks for some hot cocoa and then went for a drive to a home that boasted a light show set to music.

The 35-minute drive time to the light show swelled substantially when Emmy announced she needed to go potty.  As you can see, she wouldn't be rushed.

We made it!  It's incredible what people create.

 Daddy and his dinner dates at Chuy's in Nashville.  We braved a sit-down restaurant for the first time in who-knows-how-long.  It was fast-paced, but, luckily, there were no melt-downs!

Millin' around the Opryland hotel.  Their Christmas decor is world-class, and could get even the grinchy-est person in the Christmas spirit.

Unfortunately, we missed Santa by seconds the first time we went to the Opryland Hotel on Thursday night.  He was literally walking out of the room as we walked in.  Emmy was crushed.  So, we promised her that we'd come back...We made good on our promise on Saturday afternoon.  Pretty much everyone had the same intentions as us, which led to a fantastic traffic jam entering into the area surrounding the hotel.  I chose to view it as a rite of passage...:-P  Emmy savored her time with Santa, and spent a whole minute spilling her thoughts.  I would give anything to know what all she told him; the only thing I could get out of her was that she told Santa she wanted to go ride on the miniature train that was in the neighboring arena.