It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I don't know about you, but I LOVE this time of year. I love looking at the Christmas tree glowing in our living room at night. I love shopping for presents for loved ones, and wrapping them. I love walking to the mailbox and getting Christmas cards. I love driving around with the family at night in search of pretty houses all decorated with lights (we did this last night). I love all of the wonderful things that the Cincinnati area has to offer this time of year.
This morning I went with the kids and my mom to the Shriner's Hospital Gingerbread House Display Contest, it was wonderful. Here are some pictures of our favorites:
They had a Gingerbread house in the Culinary Arts Competition area that was the "UP" House, loved it!


This was a pretty one:



This one was of Findlay Market, the attention to detail was amazing. It was in the professional category.

There were sooooo many houses, they blew me away. If this blogger photo upload was any quicker I would upload them all, but I digress.........

We had such a great time looking at all of the houses and voting for our favorites. Then we got back into the car and headed over to another Cincinnati treasure, Krohn Conservatory. The pointsettas were just beautiful!
The kids and I in front of the pretty flowers:


Mom and the kids in front of the pointsetta tree:


The live nativity scene they have outside wasn't open today,they said it will be on the 11th so we'll have to return.

So much more things to look forward to and displays to see. On our list are the downtown displays, Holiday in Lights drive through at Sharon Woods, Festival of Lights at the Cincinnati Zoo, the Reindog parade (gotta look for an outfit for Mickey for this one), seeing a Nutcracker performance and a live Christmas Carol performance at the Aronoff center, and a new one to try: Neiderman farm. Another tradition of ours is sitting around the Christmas tree and sipping on hot chocolate with the kids while we tell Christmas stories. You can't forget all of the holiday baking and decorating to come too, just LOVE this time of year. I hope you are enjoying it with your families too!
-Lesley