Christmas

Hands down, Christmas is my favorite holiday.
Probably because of the fond memories and the wonderful music. The cheerfulness and the lights glowing all around make me happy. And don't forget all the goodies! Christmas time is not time for dieting!

My favorite song, by far, is Oh, Holy Night. {Especially sung by Josh Groban. CHILLS.}

We have some of our own traditions such as every year each family member gets a new ornament to put on the tree. I add the year on the back with marker. When our children leave they will have a nice ornament collection to put on their own tree. We started this the year our first baby was born.

We also put up the tree as a family. If someone is busy or gone we wait. It's a tradition to do it together with delightful Christmas music, cocoa, with cookies or donuts. Warren does the lights {White lights only... it looks more elegant to me} and the kids take turns every year putting the star on top. We generally put up the tree the first weekend in December.

We do 'Secret Santa' every year as well. We involve several families at our church. We do 3 secret, stealth-like drop offs during the month of December. In January all the families meet for a potluck dinner and we reveal who- had- who and tell the funny stories of almost getting caught. We have done this for about 6 years now. My children love it. I'm glad I started this tradition. I think my children will have fond memories of it later in life.

I'm usually pretty good at sending off Christmas cards to family and friends. Sometimes I make them, sometimes they are store bought. Sometimes there's a picture in the card and sometimes not...like this year. I didn't say they always go out on time! But I try to send out cards from our family.

Among our family we draw names for gifts. Our short people really enjoy this and look forward to shopping for the one person they have that year.
On my side of extended family we don't draw names- we just buy for all.
On Warren's side of the extended family I started a Christmas rotation among the children's families. There are 10 children in his family so this is much more affordable! We all buy for his parents.

We always have a 'Night before Christmas party'. We all wear Christmas jammies as we decorate cookies for Santa, feed the reindeer, sing carols, look up Santa's status in the world online and end it by reading "The night before Christmas" as we usher the overly excited kiddies to bed. Warren and I stay up too late eating treats, wrapping gifts and watching a movie- usually 'The Christmas Story"- which is Warren's favorite.

Warren follows in his dad's footsteps and makes sausage gravy and fried potatoes every Christmas morning breakfast. It's a tradition his family had and we keep it going. It's so yummy and nice that Warren cooks for the family. He loves doing it too.

As for celebrating the true meaning of Christmas- we have many Family Home Evenings full of talking and reading the scriptures of the story of Jesus' birth. There's always a nativity we go to or are involved with at church too. We also help someone in need every year by giving.


December is always full of things to do, places to go and memories to be made. It's something I look forward to every year. This year I am pretty tired and still sick with pregnancy junk.
I just do what I can. It's nice that my kids are getting older to help out more.

Merry Christmas to all! Make some happy memories with those you love!