We had a wonderful Christmas! This was our 3rd really FUN Christmas with Carter and Shae's 1st fun one. The kids got some wonderful gifts and we've been enjoying great quality time with family. We chose to go south to visit my family for Thanksgiving this year and stay home for the month of December. It's the first time since we've been married that we haven't visited my family for Christmas. So, it's been different, but we've enjoyed it. Tom's sister and her family have been visiting so we've been busy with them. Plus, we've enjoyed creating our own traditions as a family. What kind of traditions do you have? Anything unusual? I'm always looking for ideas since we are just getting going with our family. I want to start things now that we can continue throughout the kids growing up. A few things we do now are:
*Advent Calendar
We have a little people hanging advent calendar. If you've never seen it and have small kids, you really should check them out. You spend the month of December creating the manger scene and on Christmas morning get to put baby Jesus in the manger. It is SO darling! Carter looks forward to it each day in December.
*Elf on the Shelf
If you have never heard of this, you should check it out. It is such a cute idea. However, we do not do Santa at all, so instead of Elf on the Shelf, I bought a Zebra that has bendable arms/legs and we named him and call him our hide-and-seek Zebra. No magical powers, or visits to the North Pole....just a fun animal that we can play a game with at Christmas time. Every night we would hide him in different spots (just like Elf on the Shelf) and the first thing the kids wanted to do in the morning is look for him. Shae' especially got really good at finding him, often times before Carter even would.
*Joy Stocking
This is one of my favorites. We start right after Thanksgiving. I leave blank paper and pen on the kitchen counter and throughout the month of December, we write joy notes to each other and place them in a special stocking we have hanging on our fireplace. These notes start with....."you bring me joy when....." and can be filled in however. It's just our way of saying what we are thankful for in each other. On Christmas Eve, we read the notes aloud. This was our 3rd year of doing this. We actually were so busy Christmas Eve with family over, that we ended up reading them at the breakfast table Christmas morning and I really liked that too. I can't wait until the kids are old enough to write their own notes. It will be so fun to see what they come up with!
*Christmas Carols
Call me old fashioned, but I LOVE singing Christmas Carols! We do this on Christmas Eve before bedtime. We just gather around the piano and sing as many songs as possible before the kids lose interest. HA. Everything from Jingle Bells to Silent Night. It's a blast. I look forward to future Christmases when the kids can play an instrument and we can have our own little band while we sing :)
*The Christmas Story
The last, but certainly not least, thing I'll mention is our reading of the Christmas Story. A rule in our house is no presents are opened Christmas morning before we read the Christmas Story found in Luke 2. This year was really sweet because Carter was SO excited to read about baby Jesus.
These are just some of our traditions. I look forward to making many more as our family grows and the years pass. I want traditions that my children can pass on to their children.
I'll close with some pictures from our Christmas. I'm including some pics of my Christmas decor too. I LOVE to deck my house out with Christmas stuff. There's not many a corner in my home that goes untouched. :-)
The centerpiece in our living room, that's our joy stocking hanging :)
My living room tree, yes, not much green showing I know ;)
My cozy living room. LOVE this room. That's my new furniture that was part of my Christmas present :)
I love to display my Christmas cards....these are just randomly stuck in this decor piece in my kitchen....I get to look at them every morning while I make my coffee :)
Our family room. I love doing the bright colors..SO fun! This is where we open gifts :)
The stockings are hung with care :)
Shae' on Christmas Eve
Carter on Christmas Eve
Christmas Morning :)
Caught in the act ;-)
She thought it was funny :)
The best I could get of them together
All the kids went in together and got these throws for the grandparents. It has all the grandkids photos on it. (great-grandkids for Grandma Mim, pictured here) Grandma Mim said she laid it across her bed and every time she walks into her room, it's like all the great grandkids are there looking at her. How sweet! :)
Here's the grandparents with their throw. My MIL cried like a baby when she opened it. I would call that a successful Christmas present :) (I just realized that the bottom of the throws aren't showing in the pics...but I promise all the kids are pictured. The throws are huge)
I pray you all had a blessed Christmas as well! xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment