It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I know I've said it before...I LOVE this time of year. I love Christmastime. I just love the entire month of December. I am that person who the day after Thanksgiving turns to the radio station that starts playing only Christmas music 24/7, and even though that means I will hear "Last Christmas" by Wham! hourly for the next 30+ days, I never tire of it.

I love Christmas shopping, and wrapping presents. I love watching ridiculously cheesy made-for-TV Christmas movies. I love baking treats and packaging them up in Christmas tins and delivering them to friends and neighbors. I love decorations and lights and Christmas trees in front room windows.

I love it all.

And this Christmas is extra special for a few reasons. The first - and most obvious- is it is Luke & Abbey's first Christmas, and our first one as a family of four.

It's also special because it is the first one our new home, the first home we've ever owned.

Being that there are a few "firsts" this year, it's got me thinking about establishing traditions. After reading this post, I've been thinking about it even more. And then the other night during my nightly reading in this book , I was presented with these two quotes....

" 'One of the most important aspects about family traditions -rituals that families continue to do year after year- is that traditions have symbols and families need symbols. You bring out the old glass, you sing the old songs, you say the same prayer, you wear a certain outfit, you set the table in a certain way.' These are the unconscious moments of family ritual that become emotional security blankets to be tugged on in times of stress." - George J. Wolin (Clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University Medical School)

"Traditions are the guideposts driven deep into our subconscious minds"-Ellen Goodman


Aren't those beautiful?

I have so many wonderful memories of Christmas traditions growing up. Going up to my Aunt Kay's every year. Bundling up and piling my entire family of 7 into our suburban and driving to the other side of town to go through the neighborhoods that went ALL OUT with lights and decorations. Christmas dishes for the whole month. Getting a new ornament each year that symbolized something we had done that year. Putting out cookies and carrots for Santa and the reindeer. The sheer elation of getting to open one present every Christmas eve. Running down the stairs and seeing the new presents that weren't there the night before in the special wrapping paper that said "from Santa".

David and I have already started a few traditions over our last 6 Christmases together. We always take a night and make popcorn and David makes hot cocoa the REAL way (melts the chocolate himself and everything!) and we watch National Lampoons Christmas Vacation together. And we always make orange sweet rolls for breakfast on our Christmas morning. But that's it so far.

And now as I dream about our children growing up and having Christmas memories, it makes me think about what kind of traditions I want to establish with them and for them.

I love the idea of watching Christmas movies while snuggled under Christmas blankets. I love the idea of Christmas jammies each year. I want us to read Luke 2: 1-20 as a family. I was asking around at work what some favorite Christmas traditions are, and one of the surgeons told me every year he and his family make and package sandwiches and then go downtown on Christmas day and deliver them to homeless people that are living on the streets. That's something I would definitely like to do with our kids when they are a bit older.

One of my favorite ideas comes from a family I know from my preschool teaching days, every year they make a birthday cake for Jesus. I LOVE this idea. We aren't going to start it this year, because the twins are too little for cake, David isn't real big on sweets, and I have an aversion to throwing out unused food...add those 3 things up and you've got me eating an entire cake myself. This would not be good. So we will try that one next year when we can share it =)

We have some decorations up this year, and after Christmas I intend to hit up some sales and collect some more for the years to come. I loved having a decorated house growing up, and I want Luke and Abbey to have the same experience.

I'd love to know what some of your favorite Christmas traditions are! I would especially like to know how you commuicate the real meaning of Christmas to your kids.