Christmas Came Early

Trying to maintain some level of normality in our house right now is proving more and more difficult. There is stuff everywhere and it's taking twice as long as normal to find anything that we need. Roll on Friday when everything will be taken away and we won't have to sort through our belongings anymore!

The next two months will be equally as crazy travelling all over and meeting up with people left right and centre ... as well as celebrating Christmas and New Year with family. We won't be able to give presents to the girls in the same way as normal this year. Travelling with presents either to or from the UK isn't really practical, so we've had to improvise and give one of our pressies a little early.

The girls love, love, love to dress up and we found the best trunk/foot locker to give them, so all their things can be stored in one place! A few days ago we told them to close their eyes and had lots of fun watching the smiles on their faces, when they realised what their early Christmas present was!! They were super excited and jumped straight in themselves, shouting 'Hooray'!

Dress up is such a great source of imaginative play for little ones. According to about.com ...

... while dress up play is an incredibly fun activity for little kids, it's also a very important one, helping them build up their vocabulary as well as their confidence ... Role playing, especially when it happens with other children, encourages taking turns, cooperation and socialization. Children that allow their imaginations to run wild become great problem solvers as adults. Why? Because creative thinking grows with use and practice and while trying to figure out how to rescue dolls from the bad guys doesn't seem like a pressing issue to you, to the superhero child, it's a quandary that has to be figured out immediately.

As I said, my two love it and I often have fairy cowboys, kung-fu fighting santas and a lot of princesses parading around and playing in my living room really nicely together! It can take up hours of their time and while they're clearly having a whale of a time, it is also a lot of fun to watch too!

Christmas certainly will be a little different from normal this year but in some ways it will extend the celebrations (they have already started!) and may even make it more fun and memorable in years to come.

Due to the everything that is going on over the next week ... I may well miss out a few of my normal posts until we're in the UK ... or not! I'll just see how it all goes!