Visiting Santa 2015

Last weekend we spent a day in the city doing a little festive sight seeing. First up we visited the Fairmont Hotel to see the Giant Gingerbread House and then the Westin St Francis Hotel to see the Sugar Castle. You can see them both here. 

Our next stop was Macy's to go see Santa and tell him our Christmas wishes

Visiting Santa at Macy's

Friday's advent voucher was the one that the girls' look forward to the most out of the whole calendar: the voucher to visit Santa at Macy's.

We headed into the city in the evening after Ava's skateboarding class and the girls couldn't wait to see Santa. As usual Ava and Lola were a little nervous when it actually came time to go talk to Santa but Mathilde was pretty intrigued and happy to go sit on his lap. The big girls warmed to him pretty quickly and in no time they were telling him about all the things they'd like for Christmas: a tv, puppies, American Girl accessories, a computer, a chess set...

Letters to Santa

December is Christmas crazy all month long in our home. The advent calendar goes up on December 1st and every day the girls find a voucher for Christmas activities. Vouchers for ice skating, choosing a tree, Christmas crafts, Christmas movies, visiting Santa...

Every year the first activity in the advent calendar is the same: writing a letter to Santa.

Advent Calendar: Day 1

It's the first day of December and that means it's the first day of the advent calendar. Ava and Lola have eagerly been waiting the arrival of the advent calendar so they were pretty excited this morning when they walked out of their bedroom and discovered it hanging in the hallway.

As usual I have filled our advent calendar with vouchers for Christmas themed activities rather than the traditional chocolates. And as usual first up in the advent calendar was a voucher to write and send letters to Santa, something which Ava has been very eager to do for weeks.

Letters to Santa

My Advent Calendar 2012

Yesterday I shared my friend Daniela's fantastic advent calendar garland. Now it's time for a look at our advent calendar for this year...

Do you remember the advent calendar that we used last year? You can see it here. This advent calendar was purchased from my favourite Swedish stationery store Kikki.K before we left Australia last year. I really wish that Kikki.K would open stores here in America. Anyway, I'm getting side tracked...

I love the simplicity of this advent calendar. The design is minimalistic and modern while still festive with its red and white colour theme. As with last year I have made vouchers for holiday activities to include in the advent calendar. Last year's vouchers were very simple (hand written on card) as my craft supplies, computer, printer etc were still in transit from Australia.

This year I decided to design something a little more stylish for the advent calendar. Keeping with the simplicity of the calendar I went for a simple, modern design: blackboard background, red banner, white text and fine white borders. To help the girls pull each voucher out of the advent calendar I added some red and white baker's twine as a pull string. Nothing fancy but I think it goes quite well with the calendar.

Christmas activity vouchers ready for the advent calendar

Letters to Santa

Day 4 on our advent calendar and the voucher entitled Ava and Lola to send letters to Santa at Macy's.
We posted the letters to Santa at Macy's rather than a mailbox on the street as they are donating $1 to the Make a Wish for each letter received.

Ava thought long and hard about what she wanted to write on her letter to Santa. In the end she decided to go with just Squinkies and a Zhu Zhu Pet. Anyone out there without a young daughter will have no idea what I'm talking about. Keep it that way!

Ava's letter to Santa

I asked Ava what she thought Lola might like to ask Santa for and the response (which was dictated to me for Lola's letter) was : "Some little baby toys, but a little bit big. That's because I am a one year old". Well, that's nice and clear for Santa!

Once the letters were ready we headed into Macy's to post them. I love that they have have a dedicated mail box for letters to Santa and especially love that there are two chutes: one up high for big kids like Ava and one down low for the littlest kids like Lola.

Ava and Lola prepare to post their letters

 After the letters to Santa were posted the girls checked out the view over Union Square from Macy's.

Ava and Lola look out over Union Square

Lola watches people ice skating

Union Square from the 7th floor of Macy's

The giant Christmas tree, people ice skating, and even the breakdancing Santas give such a festive feel to Union Square. There's something about Christmas in winter that just feels more festive; more magical. Even if it's not white. All of our Christmas traditions make so much more sense in cooler weather.
Plus American cities go all out when it comes to the holidays. Christmas meets you at every turn in San Francisco, but as all of the decorations only went up after Thanksgiving, it still feels fresh and new.

Could also be because it IS all fresh and new for us. Everything is still an adventure...