Weekend Favorites: It Has Begun!

Ben holds off on Christmas until December. The rest of us listen to Christmas music in November already, when he’s at work, and he was okay with me putting up our little Christmas village before December, but other than that, everything must wait!

So this was the big weekend! Anika is extremely excited that we can FINALLY have the tree decorated!

Ben would like me to specifically give him photo credit for some of these pictures!!;) He was joking, but I was quite impressed with this last one that he took!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Making a Big Deal About the Little Things

The year Anika was born, we did not have a Christmas tree.

She was only two months old at Christmas, and I felt a little overwhelmed about facing the holidays with a new baby.

On top of that, my family was going through a rough time, and it was sucking all energy, motivation, and Christmas cheer right out of me.

So we skipped the Christmas tree.

And Christmas still happened.

It was possible to have a pretty good Christmas, anyway.

But I don’t want to go without a tree again. I know that Christmas isn’t about the tree, and the presents, and all that stuff, but as a kid, there was so much magic in all of those traditions. My mom was always great with the little details.

I have so very many memories of all those fun things we used to do at Christmas – pink popcorn, my Grandma’s fudge recipe, decorating our extremely color-coordinated Christmas tree, our wooden manger scene.

Now that I have children of my own, I have two goals each Christmas:

1) To teach them exactly why we celebrate Christmas.

2) To fill their lives with as many magical memories as I carry with me from my own childhood.

My magical memories all have to do with the little things – the traditions that were special for our family, and all the little details that made it feel like home. A candlelight fried chicken Christmas dinner from Chicken Delight, accompanied by my mom’s favorite instrumental Christmas music…. Opening presents on a Sunday, and ONLY once it was dark outside!

Ben and I have our own traditions now, and our Christmas looks a bit different. I love that. Our way of celebrating is unique to our family. Everybody has their own way, and it doesn’t seem to matter much what the traditions are, just as long as they get done each year!

It isn’t the big pleasures that count the most; it is making a great deal out of the little ones. (Anonymous)

What are your favorite Christmas traditions?

Trying to Make Some Christmas Memories

Oh, it’s that time of year again.

I love decorating for Christmas…in theory.

But in actuality, it always turns chaotic, and someone gets grumpy and/or frustrated, and then it becomes contagious, and before long, I’m wondering why in the world we’re decorating for Christmas at all.

Ben often voices this thought, usually while I’m still thinking that it’s fun and important, and I think I love doing it, but it takes me about 45 minutes of trying to decorate to agree with him. If our timing on that sentiment would match up, the girls would come dangerously close to going without a Christmas tree.

But what gets me every time are these two little things:

1) Memories – from when I was a kid, and Christmas decorations were magical.

2) Our girls’ reactions – They love it as much as I used to! Anika plays with our little Christmas village every day, from the day we set it up until the day we take it down. Kaylia is following strong in her big sister’s example.

And they get so excited about decorating a Christmas tree, just like every kid.

So let the decorating chaos continue…for many years to come.

This year, I have something new to think about to get me through the moments of grumpiness:

Then we dragged out our Christmas decorations and set to work for the rest of the afternoon together. The tinies were so excited and we’re drifting into the years when they have precedent, when they remember what we did last year, when they can’t wait to open up the box and see their ornaments from the year before. It reminded me again that this is their time, their childhood and these are the memories they’ll have, the standard and expectations for their grown-up Christmases. (Emerging Mummy)

I want them to remember the way we used to do things. The traditions we had when I was a kid have always been important. I love continuing them with my kids, and adding some of Ben’s traditions, and coming up with some brand new ones of our own!

And sometimes that’s hard work, and it takes a lot of effort, and sometimes the efforts really bomb, but sometimes they create magic.

So we’ll keep trying, and I’ll keep remembering that these are the years I want to remember forever, and I hope our girls will, too.

Christmas Tree

Every Christmas, we try to get some good pictures of our girls by the Christmas tree.

Ha! This is only Kaylia’s second Christmas, so we’ve taken pictures twice…like I said, every Christmas!

And I really wish this picture wasn’t blurry – it’s my favorite, by far!