Christmas

I am finally getting around to writing about Christmas. I got to spend Christmas eve at home enjoying the evening with my family. We enjoyed our usual traditions. This year we had Christmas dinner for Christmas eve. We read the Christmas story from Luke 2 using cute puppets I made a few years back, reread last years promises/gifts for 2007 and wrote new ones for 2008 (these are spiritual promises/gifts to Jesus), the girls opened their Christmas PJ's, and then Kevin and I spent the night wrapping presents.

Of course on Christmas morning the girls were up super early examining the tree and the contents underneath. They were so cute. Kevin and I could hear them whispering and giggling. Within minutes they were pouncing us telling us Santa had come and we needed to get up and go see. Before we open presents we discuss the true meaning of Christmas again to reiterate the importance of this holiday.

For years I had an issue with "Santa" and wasn't sure how I felt about celebrating that portion of this holiday. I have decided this year that I am OK with it. Santa is one of those magical childhood traditions that I didn't want to take away from my girls. I will be OK with it as long as they always know why we really celebrate Christmas. We have taught them well and they understand that Jesus gave us the greatest gifts of all, forgiveness and eternal life, and that we in return serve and give to others we love and those in need. This year we each chose a person off of a giving tree to get a gift for. The girls really enjoyed that. We all wanted to do more, but with our circumstances we did what we could.

We spent the morning eating goodies and enjoying each other's company before I had to go to work. The next morning I was leaving super early to get on the plane to go see my family. We were very blessed this Christmas. It was a very enjoyable day. Oh, we also decided to do something different this year. We chose names and whoever name we chose we had to make that person a special homemade gift. We all really enjoyed that. We each had to think a little harder about what the other person might enjoy and also put a lot more love into it. Kevin drew my name, he made me Christmas eve dinner; I didn't have to do a single thing, it was beautiful!

I drew Emily's name, I made her a picture frame to put on her dresser.
Emily drew Lydia's name, she made her a little doll bed out of an old pillow's stuffing, a box, and an old sheet that we cut up and sewed a pillow, the "mattress" and a little blanket. It was really cute. Emily was excited about learning to sew. Lydia drew Kevin's name, she said, "Dad loves chocolate, let's make him some chocolate", so we made his some awesome chocolate coconut truffles! YUMMY! We all enjoyed that part of Christmas and decided it will be a new family tradition.