Yup, Christmas is coming fast and furious! We had a lovely Sunday, though Scott is horribly sick (poor fellow has been working too hard this past week). But the kids and I dressed in our best black, red, and green in the spirit of Christmas & headed off to church. Really, there is just nothing better than singing Christmas hymns to get you in the spirit.
The kids are on Christmas Break which is fabulous but also after about a day the fights began. Which is no fun for any of us. But, even as I've wanted to wring everyone's necks, I've been thinking about how grateful I am that they have each other. Being an only child has it's perks but a lot of the time I was lonely. I'm glad they have siblings- to love and to annoy.
5 comments:
here are a few of my favorite traditions:
christmas eve we always decorate cupcakes, sing happy birthday to Jesus, and talk about what we can give him to celebrate his birthday.
we always act out the nativity (typical!) but we all put costumes on and read the christmas story.
also our last activity before we all go to bed (we always sleep with all of the kids together on christmas eve and watch a movie - a christmas slumber party!) we sprinkle Christmas dust. we each have a teeny bag of "magic christmas dust" (gold glitter) and we go out on our porch with the lights off and read a little poem. the poem says something to the effect of - go outside and sprinkle the magic christmas dust, turn around 2 times, and turn on the lights. if the dust sparkles when you turn on the lights then you know santa is coming! (but it's written cute :) ) so that's always fun/cheesy, the little kids always love it. and i think the older ones still like it too!
Every night (theoretically) we read a Christmas book and sing a Christmas song, with Rob on the guitar, next to the tree with only the Christmas lights on. It's really the only thing we do, it's not much, but it feels like enough. I don't stress if we miss a night, which has happened a lit this year. Last year, with the addition of a Swiss family member, we started celebrating Advent (light a candle each Sunday in December, each week is an additional candle)- and it fits perfectly into what we've already been doing, but weake sure it's a spiritual book and a hymn not a "secular" song. I love that it ensures that we remember the birth if the Savior during the season. On Christmas Eve, instead of one of our books we read Luke 2. I love our simple tradition and that we've done it since we were married and that our kids will love it too!
*we make sure
This year we are trying something new. The kids have to pick out some "old" toys and we will leave them in a bag to donate. The kids are told that we are leaving the bag out for Santa, and he will take the toys and fix them up to give to kids that don't have toys. Other than that we are pretty low key, just trying to enjoy time together.
You all look so festive! When I was little, Santa would leave our stockings by our beds, so when we woke up, we spent time going through them by ourselves and then with our siblings. It let my parents sleep a little longer. Also, each stocking always had one or two mini boxes of cereal, which we would eat for breakfast so my mom didn't have to make breakfast that morning. I still get excited to open my stocking in bed on Christmas morning.
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