Christmas Traditions

I am going to start getting back in the habit of shorter more frequent entries to keep out of town family and friends up to date on us. First trimester fatigue and keeping up with a 13 month old definitely threw me for a loop the last few months. This year I've been thinking more intentionally about what I want our Holiday traditions to be starting with Christmas. Matthew is more aware this year and absolutely more active than this time last year:

We decorated VERY differently this year due to our little walker. We didn't place out the breakable knick knacks. The main tree downstairs is now for the most part now full of soft non breakable ornaments and it's only decorated above his reach.

This next picture was a very common occurrence the first few days we had it fully decorated and we decided it wasn't worth fighting every day. Especially once Matthew uumm... passed a bead from an ornament. It was scary at first to think what might have happened had the bead been bigger and now funny since all is all right. There are enough non negotiable no-no's, adding more around the holidays just wasn't worth it for us. It's a short period of time to have a half decorated tree and it's funny to us. We have one in our bedroom that's all cute and matchy and no touch, the door can be shut so that's how we handled that.

There are so many fun things to do around this year. I really want to go simple so I can enjoy meaningful time with my family. The search has been on to find activities that are reflective of our values, age appropriate and fun. I've been checking out other blogs, talking with people and doing some googling around.

So far this year we have been reading our Christmas book:

Playing with our favorite birthday find telling the story of the birth of Jesus:

and listening to the Christmas Message station through our satellite with the screen off through out the day. Mommy randomly starts singing and dancing with Matthew. One of my favorite memories as a child was all 4 of us kids dancing around to my dad's stereo with my parents.

We attended one Christmas party as a family (if anyone from the Class party has a picture of all the kids taken that night I would really like a copy, I can't believe I forgot my camera!) and another one where mommy and daddy got a night out to themselves.

Mommy and Daddy activities were sending out Christmas cards and watching Christmas movies. We addressed slowly a bit each night after Matthew went to bed while watching a Christmas show. Here is our Christmas picture 2010:

We also do weekly Christmas movie nights. Daddy's favorites are Elf and Die Hard. Mommy's are It's a Wonderful Life and The Nativity Story.

I've heard many wonderful examples of how several families manage the greed that can come with the season. We don't really have to deal with that this year but we intentionally just chose two well thought out gifts for Matthew and one for each other. Our small groups at our church adopt a family and we correspond with our Compassion Child.

Still to come prior to the actual holiday: We hope to go through and look at lights some place close to home before Christmas since Matthew is front facing in his car seat now. We are looking forward to our church's Candlelight service.

In the years to come I hope to build on these traditions as we focus on the birth of Christ. I look forward to next year when he can draw, color and can play with his new sibling :-)) By the way we find out gender mid January. Ok, this is much longer than I planned, I hear Matthew waking from his nap but I feel like I haven't blogged anything personal in a while. I hope everyone is truly enjoying this time of year. It really is a time when more people chose to act on the selfless giving and unconditional love of Christ. It really is wonderful to experience.