last day of christmas!

on the twelfth day of christmas, 

my mommy gave to me...

twelve christmasy christmas things

{image found here}

eleven people partying

ten frogs A-leaping,

nine chocolate filled-coins,

eight hours A-good-deeding,

seven colors A-swimming rug,

six hours of-'A-not-laying,

five, pop rings...

four skateboards,

three french cars,

two shirts whilst listening to the DOVES,

AND

 a suitcase ornament for my-size tree.

1. we started driving to arizona early in the morning, listening to all 40's- 60's christmas music.

2 through 10. my friend mckenna and i had eight of our friends call jackson, pretending to be his favorite hero/disney characters, wishing him a merry christmas. these heroes included: spiderman, lightening mcqueen, jesse, woody, little mermaid, silver surfer, the muffin man + santa. 

{he was questioning lightening mcqueen's voice}

we look back...

he was blowing on the flaming hot cheetos because they were too "hot!" 

11. we went to mesa, had some large portions of sushi, hit up the anthropologie sale and brought a pointsettia to someone we love.

jackson loved kenna and kept doing this for her.

i wanted to take him home with the chair... such a great corner piece.

we are wooses when it comes to shopping and last five minutes tops. 

so we ended up playing while we waited.

12. we checked into the ritz carlton phoenix! i told jackson all day that after a long drive we were going to see a pretty christmas tree at a nice hotel but when i told him we were staying, he got so excited.

- they surprised us with the club level, so when we arrived to the top floor, the concierge knew our names and jack said, "hey, how did you know me?"

- the floor's lobby was offering cheeses, herbal teas and fun candies, incredible cookies lined up in jars. 
jack asked one of the servers if she could give him hot water so he could watch his grow-a-lizzard grow. she brought it in a wine glass on a silver tray. oh, we fancy huh.

switching the DND sign with his handmade ornament. so thoughtful and festive.

all his cars lined up...

- i gave little man a bath. somehow he turned into santa.

- i wanted to see what posh-version of jack would be like. this look lasted five seconds.

- we watched the old cartoon version of grinch.
- made a mess with stickers, because we could.

- we read the prancer book and scriptures together.
- i scratched his little back to sleep and that was our last day of christmas!


i am so grateful for this time of the year where everyone is so loving and giving and remembering why we celebrate Christmas.  it's been such a great past twelve days showering jackson with gifts but also teaching him daily little lessons of how Christmas came to be.  although i am exhausted, it was well worth it.  i hope he will remember some of these memories we shared together by turning our non-christmas time into our own little christmas.

i hope everyone has a wonderful, warm and merry christmas.

much love from melissa and jackson

{after this post, i will be taking a pretty good break on posting. i have some traveling, some of my 18 credits that start early - as in monday, some more miles to run and some catching up with sleep if that's possible.}