It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

In my head, Christmas is a magical time, full of joy and merriment. But in reality, these moments are not always as joyous as I imagine they should be.

I hope our kids remember that we had some fun traditions and they forget the tired, stressed, impatient mommy who sometimes reared her frustrated head.

My daily prayer for myself is that I will have grace for my family, and also for myself when I mess up. I am thankful for children who forgive and forget – even if Jack sometimes tells me that Santa isn't going to bring me presents because I yell too much.

These days, the best part of my day is bedtime when Jack tells me he loves me more than I love him, and I know for sure that all is forgiven and a new day will dawn and I will try to do better.

Every year I consider trying to follow an Advent calendar, but I think it is better to give myself permission to enjoy the season without any additional stress.

After Thanksgiving we kicked off our Christmas traditions by decorating our little memory tree. We collect ornaments every year from places we visit. And now that we have children, we also have ornaments they have made, plus yearly child-specific ornaments that I am collecting for them so they will have a collection when they leave home.

The little tree that Daniel and I bought from Big Lots when we were first married (14 years ago!) is one of our favorite things. The ornaments are dear to us. I love reminiscing about where we have been, and now we can tell Jack the stories behind each of those trips as well.

New ornaments from 2016 include one from vacation in Canada with a stop at Niagara Falls this summer, and also one from a caving trip in Florida with my siblings and our kids. Unfortunately that one is MIA. I'm hoping to find it soon.

While decorating our little tree, Isaac lasted about 5 minutes before we had to put him to bed. Once he was tucked in for the night Jack helped me make our special hot chocolate recipe. I'm pretty sure he relished the extra time with mommy and daddy, decorating the tree and sipping hot chocolate while watching a movie (he picked Charlie Brown Thanksgiving!).

We always get a second tree – a live one – that we decorate with white twinkle lights and homemade gingerbread cookies. Jack has helped me with the baking for the last several years, and this year Isaac sat with us for a bit. Isaac's current goal in life is to do whatever Jack is doing.

When Jack was first born we went to a Christmas Tree Farm to cut down our own tree. For the past two years, Daniel has convinced me that we should just purchase one from Jack's preschool. I miss the farm experience, but for now, the preschool fits us better.

I used to write yearly Christmas letters to send out every year, but that tradition is staying on hold for another year. Though I still plan to share our annual Top 10 list at the end of the month.

The thing I am learning, and trying to embrace with parenting, is that you really have to be fluid. When I am too rigid in my expectations, no one is happy. It is better when things are relaxed and we just enjoy the season. We haven't watched any Christmas movies yet, but we have played Uno in the glow of the twinkle lights.

There is still Christmas shopping to be done at our house, but hopefully these next two weeks will hold more of the wonder that my heart is yearning for – both for myself and our kids. My family will be joining us for Christmas this year and I am looking forward to sharing more of our traditions with them.

Our Live Christmas Tree: A Christmas Tradition

 

As is our tradition, we set up a live tree in addition to our little fake tree. Unfortunately, due to weather and time constraints, we were not able to make it out to a Christmas tree farm this year.

Instead we chose to go to Jack's preschool where the church was selling trees to raise money for a local Boy Scout troop and youth group activities. It didn't hurt that the preschool/church is less than a mile from our house!

I'm a little sad that we (meaning Daniel) didn't get to cut down the tree ourselves, but it was a sweet family experience none-the-less. I'm pretty sure Daniel would make this the new tradition if he could... we shall see.

While this year's tree doesn't rival the size of some of our trees in years past, it is still pretty much as big as the room can handle. We tend to go with Griswold-esque trees instead of Charlie Brown trees.

In preparation for this year's tree, we actually swapped our formal living room with the dining room since the dining room has more windows.

Even though the room is smaller, it is nice and cozy and we love to see the tree when we drive up to our house. 

Another tradition in our family is to decorate the live tree with white twinkle lights and homemade gingerbread cookies (future post will include recipe link). Pre-kids I would string popcorn and cranberries and sometimes make a paper ring garland. Those traditions may make an appearance again when our kids are older, but for now we are sticking with lights and cookie ornaments.

I love Jack at this age. He is really getting into the spirit of Christmas and starting to enjoy these traditions. I hope that the memories we make will stay with him and that as an adult he will reminisce about this precious time spent together.

Isaac is old enough to be curious and stare at wonder at the lights and the efforts of his big brother and parents. I am savoring these moments, but also look forward to when he can participate a bit more. Until next year...

Our Little Fake Christmas Tree: A Christmas Tradition

In our family we have quite a few traditions that we do during the month of December. 

This year we kicked off those traditions by putting up our small, fake, Christmas tree the week following Thanksgiving.

While Daniel and Jack worked on setting up the tree, I made my decadent hot chocolate (link to recipe here). 

Daniel asked why we still had this little tree after all of these years (it was purchased from Big Lots for $10 for our first Christmas as a married couple). He wanted to know if we had it for sentimental reasons. 

At this point there is definitely something sentimental about that little tree, but if truth be told, we still have it because we are frugal and don't like to replace things that still serve a purpose.

This little tree holds all of the ornaments we were given as wedding presents (note to engaged couples: if you get married in December, you will receive a TON of Christmas ornaments). 

There is also a collection of ornaments from all of the places we have visited over the last 13 years. So every December we have a walk down memory lane... remember that trip to Oregon with a stop at Crater Lake? Oh, and Hawaii! And that bike ride up (and down) the Virginia Creeper Trail? 

That first trip to the beach... there are quite a few Hilton Head ornaments and now we have new beach ornaments from the Gulf of Mexico. This year we added an alligator ornament from Wakulla Springs, Florida. I hope our boys love to look at this ornaments and reminisce with us in the years to come.

And now that we have sweet kiddos, the tree holds ornaments for them – those that celebrate their first Christmas' and homemade ornaments Jack has brought home from church and preschool. 

One day we may need a bigger tree, or maybe a kid tree as well as a memory tree. For now, we treasure these memories and moments with our little family.

And to keep it real, with Isaac being just 7 months old there was a moment we had to pause and put the littlest guy to bed because he was exhausted. 

Jack stayed up and to help us finish decorating. I'm sure bed time was harder than usual because of the sugar-ed up hot chocolate and the delayed bedtime, but sometimes that is the price to pay for these moments!

Traditions: Tree Decorating 2014

Saturday afternoon and evening were spent decorating our Christmas trees. First came our real tree with the Gingerbread Cookie Ornaments and white sparkle lights. Jack was pumped about this experience. Though he was disappointed that we didn't have a star for the top (we do now).

I turned on the Christmas music and we added our cookie ornaments to the tree. We strategically moved Jack around the tree since he was inclined to hang everything in clumps together.

I'm not sure what he liked more: hanging the ornaments or eating the cookies (I'll get to that later).

After our tree was decorated, we took a break before heading out to the local seafood market to grab dinner. A sampler platter for me and Daniel and salmon for Jack hit the spot.

After we had our fill of seafood, we headed home to decorate tree #2.

Our little fake tree was purchased in 2002 when we were first married. The tree skirt was actually used in our wedding. I think the tree cost us $10 at Big Lots and it has great sentimental value for us. 

For a brief moment last week, we couldn't find the tree and we were both a little sad to think that it might have gotten lost in our last move. Thankfully Daniel found it.

The ornaments on this tree are really special to us.

They include old ornaments from our childhoods, gifted ornaments from our wedding, and ornaments we have collected on every trip we have taken over the last 12 years. 

They also include ornaments that belong to Jack. A whole smorgasbord of memories can be found on our little fake tree.

One other tradition we typically do when we decorate our tree is to drink my special decadent hot chocolate, while watching a Christmas movie. This year we let Jack watch a Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas and while drinking the special hot chocolate (for him I blended it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and skipped the kahlua!).

Now back to the cookies... while I finished making the hot chocolate that Daniel and I were going to drink, Jack came up to me and said that his mouth was yucky. He had dark brown stuff in his teeth that wouldn't wipe off and I couldn't figure out what was in his mouth.

After consulting with Daniel, we realized he had asked Daniel to eat a cookie and Daniel said yes. Unfortunately the "cookie" in question was a cinnamon applesauce cookie ornament that was 3 years old...

I hurried Jack upstairs to the bathroom to brush the remnants out of his teeth and off his tongue. He seemed fine so I had him drink a bunch of water. Thankfully he didn't have an adverse reaction to eating the ornament.

While I took care of brushing Jack's teeth out, the rest of the hot chocolate for me and Daniel burned. So much for enjoying it with our tree decorating! The whole decorating mood was killed a bit after that, but Jack still enjoyed hanging all of the ornaments.

Sometimes things go how you want them to, sometimes they don't. Such is life. But we will probably always remember how Jack ate a cookie that wasn't a cookie!