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...

Traditions: Gingerbread Cookie Ornaments 2014

Continuing with our traditions this year, last Friday Jack and I made Gingerbread Cookie Ornaments to hang on our live tree. This tradition goes back to 2009 when I convinced Daniel that in addition to our fake tree that held the ornaments that are special to us, we should also get a live tree that I could decorate with homemade decorations. 

Over the years I have strung popcorn and cranberries, made red-and-white paper loop garland and I always make homemade gingerbread ornaments. 

I love the smell of the fresh tree and the fresh gingerbread in my home. It is a smell that will always make me feel like it is Christmas.

As I mentioned before, we skipped Christmas decorating last year since we were moving, which means the last time I made these ornaments Jack was still small enough to be strapped to me in the Moby while I baked.

This year was a lot different in that Jack is a precocious 3-year-old that insisted on being involved in the entire ornament-making process. On several occasions he even told me that I was his good helper.

My most exasperating (though funny) conversation with him while making the dough went something like this:

While making gingerbread dough Jack repeatedly asked to lick the beaters. After repeatedly answering "Not yet," I finally said, "Quit asking, you can have them when I'm ready." Jack paused for a moment, looked at me and said, "Are you ready?"

Precocious, I tell you!

After the dough was made it had to chill for 2 hours and Jack didn't really grasp the concept of waiting. I told him we would have to wait until after lunch to roll out the dough. He gave this a thought for a moment and then asked if we could go ahead and eat lunch...

I resorted to a distraction tactic and we managed to wait the full 2 hours before rolling out the dough. Of course he insisted on helping with this as well. Thankfully he let us take turns rolling the dough out which allowed me to get it thin enough for the cookie cutters.

We spent most of the afternoon cutting out the cookies and baking them. Jack really was a good little helper and we didn't make much of a mess. When the cookies came out of the oven he was anxious to try them. I am so thankful I use an edible recipe because he really did seem to like the cookies.

It was Saturday before we had a chance to put ribbons on our ornaments and hang them on the tree. Jack was great at helping with this process as well. I turned on some Christmas music and we all sat on the couch to thread the ribbon. We even let Jack use scissors for the first time (supervised) and he did a great job of helping us cut the ribbon.

This was a successful tradition that translated well to having a child help. Though, as with any activity involving kids, you need to check your perfectionistic tendencies at the door and put on a patience hat. You know, for those times you turn around and find your kid rolling your rolling pin across the hardwood floors... It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!

Gingerbread Cookie Ornaments

In the last couple of years Daniel and I have started the tradition of having two Christmas trees {mostly due to having a living room and a bonus room}. Anyways, our bonus room holds our small, fake tree that we bought from Big Lots when we were first married {9 years ago}. We decorate this tree with the ornaments that we have been collecting over the years.

The second tree is a {large} real tree in our living room. We decorate this tree with white twinkle lights and homemade ornaments – usually I bake gingerbread cookies and string popcorn. This year's tree is ginormous and seeing that I am a new mom, I decided {wisely} that I didn't have time to string popcorn. Instead I made a white and red paper ring garland out of construction paper {pictures to come in a later post}.

Yesterday, thanks to my Moby Wrap, I was able to spend an afternoon baking cookies without Jack fussing too much. 

I tried a new recipe this year and am really pleased with the outcome.

I will write another post later this week when the tree is finished being decorated, so keep posted.

Gingerbread Cookie Ornament Recipe

Recipe based on this recipe from eHow.

Ingredients

• 6 tbsp Crisco
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup molasses
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp ground cloves
• 2 tsp ginger
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 7 cups flour 
• 2 cups water

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Beat Crisco and sugar together in a large bowl. 
• Stir in molasses.
• Mix baking soda, ground cloves, ginger, cinnamon and flour together in a large bowl. 
• Alternate adding the water and flour mixture to the shortening mixture.
• Stir until mixed thoroughly and refrigerate 2 hours.
• Divide dough into three equal sections and knead each section lightly
• Use a rolling pin to roll out dough to a 1/8-inch thickness.
• Use festive cookie cutters to cut out your ornaments.
• Use a drinking straw or chopstick to make a hole at the top of each ornament.
• Place cookie cutouts on cookie sheets and bake for about 20 minutes. 
• Place cookies on cooling racks to harden.
• Thread a 12-inch length of narrow ribbon through the hole at the top of each ornament. Knot the ends of the ribbon and hang your ornaments.

Makes about 6 dozen cookie ornaments.

*You can paint these cookies, but I prefer the simplicity of the cutouts. They smell wonderful.