I'm finding the season to be a little harder this year. Getting into our own family traditions and such is more difficult than I thought. I'm having a hard time with "Santa" and what I want the Christmas season to look like to our girls each year. I know it'll evolve each year, with each season of life we go through but there are a few things I do want to keep as our "traditions."
What we'll do:
-go look at Christmas lights a few times
-bake for neighbors, our Pastor and a few church volunteers
-have a craft or activity each day of the month (or most days)--see my list here
-wake up in our own home on Christmas morning
-send out Christmas cards--I got a few free from Shutterfly and Nyla and I have been working on a few at a time for a couple weeks
What we won't do:
-go out of town--thankfully family is in town and we'll see just about everyone over a 4-day period
-buy one another presents--Daniel and I talked this year and for one another we're just doing stocking stuffers and after Christmas we'll go out to dinner and have a mini-shopping spree for a couple new clothes items, just the two of us!
-buy a lot of presents for our girls--in the years to come we'll do 3 gifts like Jesus received or 4 gifts using this motto: "One thing they want, one thing they need, one thing to wear and one thing to read." I like the idea of this because it's not to much and since we're trying to simplify our lives, it'll work well for us. And, most likely one gift will be a "gift of experience" (i.e. zoo membership, children's museum membership, etc), and another gift or two will be a joint gift. This year it's one per kid and a joint gift. And I was done a few weeks ago! :)
What are some of your traditions?
2 comments:
I love your gift idea for the kids...simple is much, much better in my opinion! Esp. factoring in how many gifts they get from grandparents, etc. Nathan and I haven't talked about what we'll do when William is older, but this year we're definitely keeping it simple since all he will really care about is putting everything in his mouth :)
We're in the same boat as you, just trying to figure out what we value enough to become family traditions.
The past 2 years, we've done 3 gifts for Paxton. This year, we're doing 'present socks', filling the boys stockings with small gifts.
We've been reading a lot of Christmas stories and talking about Jesus too!
Other than that, we're keeping it simple.
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