A couple of days ago, I woke up and make the kids a typical breakfast of pancakes and sausage, and then made the decision, that we were going to decorate the tree.
I streamed in some Christmas Music off the computer, a great station that plays all kinds of Christmas songs, old and new, and then intermixes stories in there.
And I watched...
I watched each child take out their ornament from previous years and react in utter excitement to see it again. They talked about it, why the liked it or what it means to them.
I listed to them share stories with eachother about the ornaments.
I watched Matt intently put the candy garland around the tree, and I watched Anna try to eat it.
The tree is heavily ornamented in certain areas, that would be at Jake and Emma height. And well the bottom of the tree has nothing due to Anna and Mr. Darcy being able to get it.
We are only doing one tree this year, so it has two trees worth of ornaments on it. Yet it still looks beautiful.
A few ornaments were broken during the process, but it was easily cleaned up.
That night I watched 4 little bodies stick their heads under the tree and look up from the bottom, at the reflections of light off the ornaments. It was almost serile~for about 30 seconds! :)
One of our traditions is that each year, each child gets an ornament from mom and dad, that will go with them someday when they leave home, so they will have thier ornaments for thier first christmas tree as a new family.
Another tradition is that one night we will load up in the surburban and drive around neighborhoods looking at the light displays that other families have done. Usually we do a impromtu trip to Mickey D's or Wendy for an icy treat.
Of course Christmas Eve dinner with the family is always a blast.
Wayne and I save all our wrapping for Christmas Eve, we are usually up till 2-3am wrapping gifts. :)
Last year we went to Washingtons Crossing and watched the presentation they do. We will be doing that again this year, except we will be having an outdoor lunch in the park.
Oh yeah, and lets not forget the matching jammies on Christmas eve.
What are some of your traditions??
Construction Fatigue
7 months ago
We always decorate our tree together, that is, the family tree. Two years ago I finally decided I wanted a fancy tree for the living room and the family tree would go down in the family room. The fancy tree is all mine :) But I think I've decided not to put it up this year because I don't have the room. I don't do any decorating until after Thanksgiving. It has to at least be Dec. 1st. Every year as a family we decide how to bless some other person or group of people or organization...Shoe Boxes with Samaritan's Purse, or the organization where you can buy a family a goat, Angel Trees, stuff like that. One year we sent all kinds of toys over to a Romanian orphanage because our former babysitter was doing missions work there at the time. Last year we adopted a Haitian family. We haven't decided yet what we're doing this year. As a family we always have Christmas Eve dinner at my parent's house where my mom serves different kinds of fish (it's an Italian thing) and some years ago we started having Cinnamon Buns for Christmas Day breakfast (yeah, the Pillsbury kind, which is a treat for us normally healthy eating people) but since I got my Belgian waffle maker two years ago, that's the new Christmas Day breakfast. We used to open presents first when the kids were really little, then as they got older open a few take a break for breakfast and open a few more after, and now, we have breakfast first. We either play music or play the video I recorded of the "Yule Log" that they started showing on TV again recently. And the year after what I call the Christmas from materialism h*ll, 3 gifts each became the limit. Stocking stuffers don't count, and are usually insignificant, but that 3 gift limit saved my sanity, and the kids' understanding of what Christmas is all about. Hey, if three were good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for us I figure. A couple of years ago we started watching all the Christmas movies we have. We plan it out ahead of time which ones we will watch when. Tonight we just watched Elf. A couple of days ago it was the old black and white called The Bishop's Wife (later remade into The Preacher's Wife). We too try to go out and look at some lights. George reads the Christmas story out of Luke on Christmas Eve, and my dad revived an old Polish custom of breaking a wafer and offering a blessing to everyone present at the table on Christmas Eve (including guests). Wow, that's a long comment! Now you know our traditions, some of which are old favorites, and some are newly created. That's the beauty of it.
ReplyDeleteWe do that too!! :) Polish Tradition! :)
ReplyDeleteI used to do chrismas jammies too! This year I bought everyone fleece Pajama pants. I guess they are a little to old for matching pajamas (sad face) love reading about your traditions- we share a lot of the same ones.
ReplyDeletelove,
Adrienne