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3 Kids, 2 Dogs and 1 Old House

Celebrations

Our Letters To Santa (And YOUR Chance to WIN with Toy Kingdom)

4 December 2015
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Dreams vs Reality

I’m sure many moms have been through the experience I had, but in case you didn’t here’s the low down.

Christmas is imminent and in the spirit of trying to create a magical Christmas you think it would be a GREAT idea to take your three children to a toy shop so that they can go through all of the toys and choose their top 3 favourite things.  Which they do – with a quiet excitement and wonder.  They pose beautifully in the pictures while holding their favourite toys so that you can send it to *cough* Santa (so he can remember which things they liked the most) and the process lasts no longer than 20 minutes.  A literal pop in and out if you know what I mean.  At home, you then sit your children down with a glass of milk and homemade Christmas cookies while you help them write their letters to Santa.  They take these letters seriously and put a great of effort and care into writing them and decorating them.  They laugh together as they think of all the things that they are going to do with their new toys.

But parenting has taught me nothing if it hasn’t rubbed in the fact that it will NEVER go to plan.  In fact the lovely moments are the unplanned ones.  A few snippets from my reality.

We chose an afternoon to visit the toy shop on the day that we were returning from our time away in Paternoster.  The littlest had fallen asleep in the car and was now full of beans but lost his ears along the way.  We arrived at Toy Kingdom in Canal Walk only to find that all the instructions that I had been drilling into them for the last half hour were long since forgotten.  Only 3?  Can’t buy them now?  What do you mean?  WE WANT ALL THE THINGS NOW!  Eventually we found some common ground and instead of taking pictures with their top 5 things (to whittle down later) we now photographed basically every toy in the store – granted, there is just so many awesome things there it’s hard to make these kinds of choices, especially when you’re 5.

On another day we sat empty handed except with the pencils that we scrounged from around the house and proceeded to try and write our letters to Santa.  OH MY WORD.  Tantrum after tantrum after tantrum.  I ended up leaving the table to go and hide in my room, only to have the tantruming child follow me with their high pitched wailing.  No escape am I right?  We did get it done though, many tears and freak outs later.

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We didn’t actually get around to posting them, but we’ll knock that one off the list next year.

But that’s life with kids hey.  It never quite goes how you want it to – sometimes it’s way better and sometimes it’s a heck of a lot worse.

The important thing to remember is that they will hopefully not be scarred by these moments, but instead look back and cherish them.  Maybe even pass the memories onto their kids.

So we made our list and we checked it twice, I’m sure they were more naughty than nice (while doing this anyway) and Santa Clause will still be coming to our town and here’s what he’s bringing:

Kyla asked for:

A Frozen Puzzle Set 

A Swimming Mermaid 

A MAUI Cookie Board Skate Board – in pink of course

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Riya asked for:

A Swimming Mermaid

A Sparkle Hair Set

A Cinderella Microphone

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Knox asked for:

A Batman Mask and Cape

A Nerf Gun

A MAUI Cookie Board Skateboard (In blue)

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The overwhelming winner was the MAUI Skateboard that you can find at Toy Kingdom for R399.95 – if Riya could have had a 4th choice this would have been it.  So we’re giving you a chance to win one for the special kid in your life this Christmas and unlike us, you can take all the credit instead of Santa. 🙂

Just enter through the Rafflecopter widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

~*~

 

The voting phase for the South African Blog Awards are now open.  If you really enjoy reading our blog and think that it’s your favourite parenting blog we’d really appreciate your vote.  You can only vote ONCE though, so if you have another favourite blogger then please go and support them :)  Here’s the link to go and vote!

 

Like what you’ve read here?  That’s flipping awesome – feel free to share it with your friends.  Also come hang out with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram where you can find us a whole lot of this – just shorter.

Our Letters To Santa (And YOUR Chance to WIN with Toy Kingdom) was last modified: December 4th, 2015 by 321Blog
Christmaschristmas giftskids christmas giftsnerf guntoy kingdom
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40 comments

CindyAlfino 4 December 2015 at 7:23 AM

Our Letters To Santa (And YOUR Chance to WIN with Toy Kingdom) https://t.co/Wbmv5ZhAY9

Reply
Carolyn Augustus 4 December 2015 at 7:28 AM

Would love a blue one

Reply
Lynn_19426 4 December 2015 at 7:31 AM

Our Letters To Santa (And YOUR Chance to WIN with Toy Kingdom) https://t.co/LJm9FqofVy via @cindyalfino

Reply
Heather 4 December 2015 at 7:42 AM

Blue!

Reply
Elaine van Huyssteen 4 December 2015 at 8:03 AM

Oh…..Emily wants a pink one

Reply
EvHuyssteen 4 December 2015 at 8:12 AM

RT @CindyAlfino: Our Letters To Santa (And YOUR Chance to WIN with Toy Kingdom) https://t.co/Wbmv5ZhAY9

Reply
Cassey 4 December 2015 at 8:15 AM

It’d be the blue one for us.

Reply
Bronwyn Jansen 4 December 2015 at 8:15 AM

Hi Cindy, just entered the competition but had a couple of queries. I couldn’t type into the comment block, so on the unlikely chance of winning, Adam loves green. Also, I typed the wrong twitter handle, it should be jansenbl, but couldn’t go back and change it. Lastly, when I tried to tweet about the competition, the post that came up was one about mamma magic. It’s been one of those mornings…

Reply
321Blog 4 December 2015 at 8:59 AM

Hey Bronwyn – so sorry that tweet about the mamamagic was my mistake – i’ve fixed it now 🙂

Reply
Rentia 4 December 2015 at 8:36 AM

Pink!

Reply
Dawn Clulow 4 December 2015 at 8:44 AM

kNOX TOLD ME LAST NIGHT HE WAS GOING TO BUY ME A SPIDERMAN SUIT FOR CHRISTMAS – A BIG ONE THAT WOULD FIT ME. SO PRECIOUS.

Reply
Tarryn 4 December 2015 at 8:49 AM

I would love a pink one!

Reply
Lindsay - Leigh Thomas 4 December 2015 at 8:59 AM

Definitely yellow

Reply
cat@jugglingact 4 December 2015 at 9:35 AM

Would love to win one! I have three lists next to my bed , each starting with “Electronic kitty/puppy” followed by a huge list of codes. Lego set codes…. will log about it

Reply
cat@jugglingact 4 December 2015 at 9:36 AM

And a blue one please

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Tana@JugglingMom 4 December 2015 at 9:41 AM

Green would be fabulous 🙂

Reply
Megan Hartwig 4 December 2015 at 9:48 AM

Would love a Pink one 🙂 Fingers crossed.

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Meg 4 December 2015 at 9:50 AM

Aww man, we love Toy Kingdom too! We always get suckered in by the Lego though – sooo much cool! The boards look like fun though – I know mate would love a red one 🙂

Reply
Charlotte 4 December 2015 at 9:59 AM

PINK… always pinik

Reply
Leigh 4 December 2015 at 10:17 AM

Blue!!

Reply
Ronele Coetzee 4 December 2015 at 10:44 AM

Blue Skateboard.

Well done on the letters to Father Christmas you are definitely braver than I am. We are also a family of 5 with 3 kids under the age of 6, it gets crazy, even the tree decorating becomes a wailing, screaming, crying etc match and that’s just me LORL
I totally love the holidays and Christmas and Easter are my all time favourites, pressies and chocolate, nothing better right.
So we do go all out and try to keep the precious magic alive, without losing the true meaning behind it.
I love the honesty of your blog and I look forward to the emails letting me know a new one has been posted.
Have a Blessed holiday.

Reply
Lu-Gerda 4 December 2015 at 11:31 AM

Great way to find out what the kids want for Christmas and for mom/dad to remember.
Going to enter the competition now. Would like a blue one.

Reply
Robyn 4 December 2015 at 11:46 AM

A green cookie board would be amazing!

Reply
Sharleen 4 December 2015 at 11:58 AM

Yellow please ?

Reply
sheralyn 4 December 2015 at 12:01 PM

Green or blue… depending on his mood

Reply
Emma 4 December 2015 at 1:38 PM

Those boards look.awesome,.esp for my newbie 5 yr old skaterboy (blue)

Reply
1_alleycat 4 December 2015 at 2:12 PM

A green board please.

Reply
Moipone 4 December 2015 at 2:21 PM

A pink one would be nice for my daughter

Reply
Poniet 4 December 2015 at 2:22 PM

Our Letters To Santa (And YOUR Chance to WIN with Toy Kingdom) https://t.co/PpMj6j79eN via @cindyalfino

Reply
Hanneke 4 December 2015 at 2:36 PM

Holding thumbs for a green one

Reply
Kim Stradling 4 December 2015 at 3:15 PM

My Lily would LOVE a pink one!

Reply
Amy Maritz 4 December 2015 at 4:01 PM

My little toddler would love this! Any colour and she would be super stoked!

Reply
Melane Els 4 December 2015 at 9:28 PM

Would love a blue one

Reply
Lynn botha 4 December 2015 at 10:07 PM

Would love a green one 🙂 please

Reply
Carri Freemantle 5 December 2015 at 7:29 AM

Green please!

Reply
kim 5 December 2015 at 12:24 PM

A yellow one please

Reply
stephanie 5 December 2015 at 12:41 PM

I would love a yellow one for my daughter

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cherise hansen 5 December 2015 at 5:44 PM

I tried to comment via facebook. I know a little man who would love a blue one.

Reply
Tracy 5 December 2015 at 6:31 PM

My boys would love a green or blue one ?

Reply
Evelene 7 December 2015 at 2:20 AM

Would love the pink one please

Reply

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After living a very normal suburban life we packed up everything to live in a VW van for a year as a family of 5. Now that we have traveled our beautiful country we are back to normal but trying to remember what it was like to live with less, spend time in nature and build on our family bonds. Join us on the journey.

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