Christmas Traditions: Santa, Cookies, and Crafts

We are excited to make new traditions here in the United Kingdom, but there are a few staples that we could just not part with this year. Our first stop this morning was Santa's grotto in our local mall.  It was a masterpiece of lights and fairytales.  They had a giant tree of lights that stretched to the ceiling with huge branches extending out.  Each corner was devoted to a different fairy tale.  The kids' favorite was Beauty and the Beast.

This Santa convinced Sierra that he was real because he said that he remembered how tall Sierra and Desmond were last year.  He also said he hadn't met Sullivan before and he was very excited to see him finally.  Sierra said wide-eyed as we left that "Mommy, he was REAL!"  Apparently all the other Santas we have met were fake.

Side Note: Our mall has one of the most amazing clocks I have ever seen.  It's hard to tell from the pictures, but at each quarter of the hour a ball goes down the stair steps into the clock and out the shoot underneath the frog.  It's spit out on to a wheel that rides to the other end of the mall.  The frog will periodically move or blink his eyes which blows the kids' mind every time.

At home, we made cookies for Santa. Most British children leave Father Christmas mince pies, but we are keeping with the American tradition of good ole cookies.  Thanks to Nana for the British oven size cookie sheets and cookie scoop.  The ovens are much smaller here and my American-sized cookie sheets just barely fit.   We now all set with treats for Santa.

Lastly, we made a few Christmas crafts.  This year Sierra was very excited to make Christmas ornaments out of beads.  They actually came out very cute.  They both made adorable Christmas trees out of dot markers.