It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas

My kids are just loving this time of year. I finally am loving it more myself. I am in Richomd now. I sent out my last Christmas card today which makes me feel less stressed. Chris will be here on friday which will be great. My bro showed up from san fran today as well. He hadn't met India yet. Poor Moriah is so painfully shy that she doesn't want to say hi to him which is so sad.
We went to visit santa with all of the old legendery things that go along with it. It is hard to explain, but it is a Richmond thing. I did it when I was a child. There are these displays that were in the old Miller and Rhodes windows back in the day before they got taken over by the larger department stores. They all did great sitting on santas lap, and alexa and moriah read their lists. Alexa wanted a robe and slippers (she added, "make them pink please.") Moriah wants a baby that swims and a pnone. SO much for raising my kids to ask for world peace...
anyways another Richmond tradition is the tacky light tour. My kids look forward to it every year. So much so, that when I told the kids we will possibly be in India next Christmas, Alexa about cried because we would miss the tacky light tour. We are going on Saturday. We pile all 8 of us into the expedition and dad has a whole list of addresses with mapquest directions. We go house to house to see the tackiest lights of richmond. Everyone tries to outdo the other guy so you can believe me that there are some outragously crazy tacky lighted houses. People get out of their cars and walk around, and some places take donations since it costs quite a bit on the electric bill. People rent limos for the night. It is a very big deal here. Funny, right!
Oh, Chris did go out and buy a gift for Moriah. It is a $50 laptop! I just hope she likes it. She is really into learning to read, and this has a lot of games for that. Since we travel a lot, he is thinking she'll love it in the car. I hope so. I wouldn't have spent that much on a toy for her, but Chris was just so excited about it that I wasn't going to tell him no. I was worried that we got so much more for Alexa than Moriah and now it is the other way around. Well, I am going to try not to be one of those moms that has to be even. I hate that.