We’ve now entered my favorite time of year! Summer’s only rival is December! Maybe it’s because my birthday is this month, but I think my love for December is treasured memories of Christmases past and trying to create positive memories for our children of their Christmases past and present. (and future?!)
It’s our family tradition that the day after Thanksgiving, we put up the tree and deck that halls for Christmas.
This year, Jim’s aunt was in town so we had a ladies lunch the day after Thanksgiving and I came home to a decorated house. The tree was up, the garland strung, the lights up, trees in each boyz’ room. It was like someone flipped a switch and it was instantly Christmas. I know the amount of work involved and the challenge of reining in all the helpful energy so as not to destroy every Christmas ornament in the process of hanging them up!
But now that we have decorated, it’s time for the season’s traditions to commence!
So far, in this first week of December, Daddy-O and I have attended a live Christmas concert, we’ve watched at least two Christmas cartoons, listened to the Muppets and John Denver Christmas CD more times than can be counted already, we’ve consumed almost a full can of peppermint hot cocoa and one bag of mini marshmallows. We had our first Christmas Tea Party after dinner Tuesday night. Daddy-O was traveling and we ditched bath time in exchange for peppermint cocoa served from the Christmas Tree Tea Pot into santa mugs accompanied by peppermint ice cream. So far, the boyz have only trashed the house three times playing Santa using my hot mits as stockings and stuffing them with toys. And the tree is faring better than usual and we’ve not lost or broken any ornaments – yet. It’s still early. But it seems that Carter’s favorite place to be is behind the Christmas tree. He even did his homework back there the other day!
I actually accomplished a little Christmas shopping midweek while the boyz were all at school. I feel like Santa driving his sleigh as all the presents are still in the back of my car covered up under a blanket. I haven’t had a chance to bring them inside to hide them in my secret stash yet. But so far they haven’t noticed their current hiding place. Thankfully!
We’ve been talking about “Giving Gifts to Jesus” – which is my attempt to teach them that this advent season is really about giving. We keep track of simple acts of kindness or small gestures of self-sacrifice and write them down in our Advent calendar house. There have been some fun discussions about what gifts we can give Jesus. Griffin wants to give Jesus a Pogo Stick for Christmas! Well, who wouldn’t, right?
Then today we went through two boxes of butter, a half dozen eggs and a five pound bag of flour making our fist batch of Christmas cookies! Carter and Kiefer were at school but I couldn’t hold Griffin and Fletcher back anymore so we made some dough and only cut out half the cookies, saving the other half for big brothers.
Fletcher was playing in the sugar jar like a sand box and when we were done he was so sugar coated I had to rinse him off in the sink!
Then, just on cue, we got our first snowfall this evening! It began on my way out of church from a Christmas concert. The boyz were so excited they couldn’t sleep. Niether can I! I guess that’s why I’m up writing at two in the morning!? It’s still coming down and I’m wondering if we’ll have a school delay. I hope we do! We need to dust off the sleds and make some tracks first thing!
As I attempted to put the boyz back to bed this evening, they pressed their noses against the frosty window and we watched the silent snow fall icing the trees and grass below. We sang together, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”
Only 20 days till Christmas! (Yay! There’s still lots of memory making to come!!)
Yes, I love this time of year!