Last night, we brought ideas of Christmas traditions or ideas. I didn't spend a whole lot of time on my list (as my time is limited!) but I'm posting the traditions and ideas that I came up with. I hope to follow up on my list during December and let you know what ideas we did and pictures of our events. I love the Christmas season, and truly desire to know God better and that through myself and my husband, our children would see Christ's love. I'm sure that some of the ideas will be a complete flop and some will be wonderful, but I invite you to come along on our journey through the Christmas season-AFTER we celebrate THANKSGIVING!
1) We always go get a Christmas tree as a family a few days after Thanksgiving. We go to a Christmas tree farm near Mt. Morris. They have a sledding hill, and if we have snow, we spend some time sledding, then take pictures, cut down a tree, and go home to enjoy chaos with four little kids all wanting to help decorate the tree.
2)A few days before Christmas, we put everyone in pj’s and give a snack for in the car and spend time driving around listening to Christmas carols and looking at lights.
3) We usually make Christmas treats for our neighbors and some elderly folks and spend an afternoon or morning delivering treats and spreading Christmas cheer (or chaos!)
4) I wrap and decorate a shoebox and then put a hole in the top. After the Christmas tree is up, it’s the first gift under the tree. The next few weeks the children collect coins and put them in the box as a special offering for Jesus.
5) My husband and I try to get away the week before Christmas for a lunch date just to share our joys of what we are looking forward to on Christmas and to spend time with each other. My husband knows that I love the anticipation of Christmas and every year I love all the gifts wrapped, the tree decorated, Christmas music, etc., and then when’s it all over, I feel a little down. I love ANTICIPATION!
6) One of my goals, this year is to go to the library…before December 1st and pick out Christmas stories to read to the children. One every day from December 1st to December 25th.
7) Another of my goals for this year…is to do a twist on the twelve days of Christmas song. I don’t think I’ll be able to manage 12 days in a row…but I’d like to plan 12 different days in December where we either do an activity as a family, or we do something for someone else. (I.e. sledding as a family or bringing coffee to a friend or something like that)
8) For Christmas gifts….I collect all year long! I start right after Christmas when things start to go on sale and buy for the next Christmas. I have several totes that I keep gifts in and then around November 1st, I haul it out, see what I have, if I need to do anymore shopping and make a list! I’ve found that I can give much better gifts for the same price just by shopping all year round. I also follow moneysaving mom.com and hip2save.com for bargains.
9) For our Christmas cards, I wait until I see a sale, usually on-line and then buy them. Usually they are bought well before Thanksgiving. The cards we are giving out this year came from cardstore.com. They had a sale of 80% off plus free shipping and I was about to get $148.00 worth of cards for $21.00- shipped to me! This year it was cheaper for me to buy an actual photo card and write a short note inside each one, but last year the best deal was to write and print my own letter and then make photo prints for .04 each.
Blessings on each of your Christmas season as we prepare, anticipate and celebrate our Saviour's birth! Glory to God!
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| Our Christmas photo for 2010 |
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