I just like to smile! Smiling's my favorite!

(Please pardon the excessive exclamations in this post title. It is one of my many favorite lines from Elf.)

Ava and I created this ensemble together. All day people kept asking if we had just finished taking Christmas pictures. Overdressed for a random post-Thanksgiving Monday? Who cares. We grabbed lunch with Daddy after gymnastics, and in this grungy time of law school finals he needed a little cheer. What brings the happy more than a Daddy-praising shirt and sequin skirt? I think she'd make Buddy the Elf proud.

Another way we love on our poor finals-laden HLS: fancytastic hot chocolate with homemade whipped cream.

We are so thankful he has this amazing study.

Things we love about sweet potato 'fries':

1. sweet potatoes are $.38 a pound
2. if you bake them with a little olive oil and sea salt they taste like heaven
3. they are Ava's favorite color

One of our favorite WOP, Missy, gave us an Elf on the Shelf and book.

We gleefully read the book and welcomed James Lockett into our family on November 28.

Each night, while Ava sleeps, James flies to the North Pole to have a powwow with Santa. Every morning we go on a hunt to find him. He ends up in the silliest places.

Ava named James after herself. They do share the same big blue eyes...

And now I'd like to invite you into our (for the year) house for Christmas.
Decorating brought to you in part, okay okay in most, by Judy.
(Also brought to you by 3M removable, no mess hooks.)

View from the front door

Dining room table

Main hallway, left of living room

Love this movie. Josh and I saw it on our first date, so it's especially dear to our hearts. (We actually saw a double feature of Elf and It's a Wonderful Life. At the drive in. But that's a story for another blog...) The lower poster is an ad from an old LIFE magazine when the movie was released. I found it at an antique store in Brenham, and gave it to Josh our first Christmas together.

Mantle
The wreath is a Judy original, not available in stores

Our downstairs tree

The mini-star bouquet beneath the topper is new this year, thanks again Judy.

Banister on formal staircase

Close up top of banister

End of banister decorations

The famous Willow Tree nativity scene, given to us by Beene Beene the night Josh proposed. Happy to say it's still in my possession, a little inside joke there.

On Saturday afternoon a mysterious helicopter was seen flying over Campus Corner.

The two smart Locketts, who thought to grab their heavy coats, ran out to see what all the hullabaloo was about.

Mommy, who was of course the dumber, coatless Lockett, frantically snapped pictures from indoors. Santa stepped out of the helicopter to greet the happy children. When Ava returned from the landing site she was ecstatic. "The real Santa looked right at me and waved!" she exclaimed. She is VERY into Santa this year. Perhaps this little video has something to do with it...

I hope these days leading up to Christmas are as warm for you as they have been for me. We have snow chances late Tuesday, just flurries, but still SNOW CHANCES! I can't think of a better way to celebrate the end of Josh's first final than the first sprinkling of snow. I'll close this post with another Elf quote:

"First we'll make snow angels for two hours, then we'll go ice skating, then we'll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse Cookiedough as fast as we can, and then we'll snuggle,"

Sounds like the perfect day to me.