Family Traditions at Christmas Time

Last year I turned into one of those crazy people who decorates their tree before Thanksgiving and I must say I loved it!  I like to spend Thanksgiving weekend with family relaxing and hanging out and I used to do my decorating Thanksgiving weekend.  So when I decorated before Thanksgiving last year I quickly realized how nice it was to truly relax during the holiday.  So this year I did the same, and I must say I probably won't go back.  I'm not crazy, I'm just practical :) 

I have found that having a child in the house really does make the Christmas season so much more exciting.  For a long time I think I was in a funk with Christmas.  It stressed me out and quite honestly I really didn't like it much (the craziness of the holiday itself, not the reason for it!)  So this year during our decorating we set out to find some of our own traditions.  We turned on some old 1950's style Christmas cartoons from Netflix.  Dave and I drank wine and I made Abbie a "special drink."  I haven't had hot chocolate in the house in ages so I warmed up some milk with some french vanilla creamer and used a candy cane as a stir stick.  I was all proud of myself for my creativeness....Abbie tasted it and proceeded to spit it out.  I completely forgot how much the girl hates drinking anything sweet.  Give her cakes, cookies, brownies and she will just keep asking for more, but sweet drinks....flat out refuses any of them.  Oh well it was the thought that counted and she thought the candy cane used for stirring was pretty awesome.  

Dave made us a fire to enjoy while we watched cartoons and sipped our drinks.  We took turns putting up decorations and ornaments on the tree and then I believe I took over because Abbie started throwing my childhood ornaments on the floor and breaking them :) 

A little while later we put together our Operation Christmas Child boxes.  You may remember my post on Acts of Service where I mentioned Operation Christmas Child.  It's a really amazing program.  You select an age group for a boy or girl and purchase things for them.  Your box can include toiletries candy, toys, socks, etc.  We had fun shopping for ours.  Although we chose to purchase for a girl Abbie's age so I had a hard time explaining to her that these toys weren't for her but to give to someone else who didn't get all the special things she does.  I'm sure she'll understand someday.  We were still able to keep a strict budget on our giving for this because we found pretty much everything we needed at the Dollar Store:  dress up stuff, teddy bear, doll, crayons, candy, toiletries  play-dough and I can't remember what else we put in there but I do know it was overflowing and I almost had to sit on it to keep it shut :) 

So in short, though our family is still new and just in the beginning stages of starting traditions, here are the ones we've started so far/or are in the process of beginning.

Christmas Traditions

1. Decorate the tree/house the weekend before Thanksgiving- watch classic Christmas movies (eventually may have to be a family vote) while decorating with a fire in the fireplace, hot chocolate, special snacks someday maybe?
2. Make a special Christmas breakfast together every year on Christmas morning (since Dave is a chef he loves to make pastries and all kinds of delicious goodies.  We both love the idea of prepping our Christmas breakfast together as a family the night before and then have a special treat to eat together on Christmas morning.
3. Operation Christmas child or donating/buying presents to another needy cause.  
4. Christmas concert- we went to one last year and it was a lot of fun.  Abbie had a good time and she did really well even as an 8 month old. 
5. Drive around at look at Christmas lights while drinking hot chocolate/coffee and listening to Christmas carols.  Growing up our town had luminaries all over on a certain night before Christmas so you drive around and see all the pretty lights.  A town near ours does a Christmas Lights Festival.  We didn't go last year but I would like to do something cause Abbie loves the Christmas lights so much!
6. Acts of Service Manger- I'll post a DIY post on how to make one in the future but the basic idea is when someone in your home does something nice for another person without asking they get to put a piece of "straw" in the manger to help make a bed for when baby Jesus comes.  Then on Christmas morning our manger will be there and baby Jesus will finally be in it.

And here is one I enjoyed as a child but I am not sure if/how we will incorporate them:

1. Christmas Eve church service (with small children it's past their bedtime so I am not sure how to make this happen.

Random side note....can I just tell you how adorable it is to see Abbie with the Christmas decorations?  She learned really quickly that things break easily and we have to be very careful and not touch any unless we ask mommy.  She is obsessed with one ornament on our tree (mostly because I made it really funny for her)....and that is a wooden gingerbread man that my sister made me when she was in college.  I taught Abbie the "Run run as fast as you can.  You can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man" song and she loves it.  She will start dancing all over near the tree and start running around the house.  We at least have to do this several times a day :)

Do you have any favorite Christmas traditions in your home?  Also I'm interested....how does your family balance the Santa present giving mania with a more faith based Christmas focus while still giving gifts?  I'm not sure how I want to handle this as Abbie gets older but I do want to respect other parents choices for how they handle Santa and the Christmas Story in their own homes.  Thoughts?

Blessings,

How to Make a Themed Christmas Tree

Growing up in a family with 5 children we had a hodge podge of ornaments on our tree every year.  We had ornaments we made in school, and ornaments my parents or other family members gave us.  I don't remember ever thinking our tree wasn't pretty.  As a child I think you just delight in the wonder that is Christmas, but as an adult, for my own family's tree I knew I wanted something a little more Martha Stewart.  Now, I am not even close to being comparable to Martha Stewart, but I have been known to be crafty and creative, and frugal in doing so.  So, today in honor of all of my readers who will be decorating for Christmas in their own homes over the next few weeks, I share a few of my own tips on:

How to Make a Themed Christmas Tree

1. Set up tree stand and your tree as usual- you can do this with a fake tree, real tree, or even a really a really old tree (don't go buying a new one if you can't afford one...you can still make an old tree look awesome!)
2. Hang your lights on your tree (PS for all you 1st time Christmas Tree decorators- if you are using old lights please plug them in first to make sure your strand works and if they don't work well I'm going to have to refer you on to another bloggers article on how to revive old Christmas Lights...I give it about 5 minutes tops of messing with the bulbs before I toss them and get a new set (buy them on clearance after Christmas and that's a convenience I don't mind spending money on!)
3. Next hang your themed Christmas tree decor.  For example I bought blue, silver, and white balls on clearance when we first got married (day after Christmas clearance sales...it was so long ago I might have bought them before Christmas which was dumb if I did it full price...at any rate at least wait for a 40% off Christmas decoration sale!).  I still use them and I love them.  I spread those out all over my tree  (try to space them out evenly and put different colors next to each other instead of an area where there is all one color and none of the other color).  I also purchased little plastic,  glittery snowflakes.  Those go all over the tree dispersed around the colored decor next. 
4. Next, I hang my topper.  I always use a bow that I've made with coordinating colors to my Christmas tree decorations. (Again buy ribbon on sale after Christmas for next years tree, or roll it back up again and use it again next year).  Some people use ribbon going around the tree horizontally.  I let mine hang from my bow topper vertically (see picture below)

This is a picture of our tree before I added any of our nostalgic ornaments to it (notice also that I made my ribbon hang vertically)

Here is a picture from a magazine I found online of how to use ribbon horizontally on your tree:

My husband and I both have some ornaments from our childhood as well as ornaments we have added to the mix now that we are our own family that we also put on our tree.  I love these sentimental ornaments!  Each one brings back so many memories.  Without the "color theme" our childhood ornaments are just scattered on a tree without focus.  I like organized.  I like pretty.  I like lovely, and adding a color theme to your Christmas tree does just that.  You can still make your tree look lovely and keep your sentimental ornaments (yes even the overly glittery ugly one from 1st grade!) The bow and colored decorations pull everything together and turn an unorganized mess of sentimental ornaments into a pretty, stylish, almost Martha Stewart looking tree....I'll emphasize the almost :)   Personalize your tree to your taste and your budget.  Your theme doesn't have to even be about a specific color although coordinating colors will help make your tree be appealing to the eye and tie everything together.  Your theme could be about your favorite hobby:  hunting, animals, wildlife, travel, etc.  Get creative and make your tree be a reflection of you, or your family!  

Happy Decorating!