Merry Christmas!
Our family has a few Christmas traditions. There are small things like, our kids all get new pajamas to unwrap on Christmas Eve (no other unwrapping until Christmas Day), They each get a new ornament to hang on the tree and keep as their own so that one day, when they have their own Christmas tree, they will have all of their ornaments to start out. I try to get them one that symbolizes something about their year.
Other traditions are bigger, like Christmas Eve we go to my parents with all of my family and celebrate with everyone. The cousins draw names and exchange gifts, we exchange gifts with my parents, we go to dinner (thanks Mom and Dad!), my mom plans a craft for the kids, we read the Christmas story from the Bible and the kids act out the Nativity. It's a wonderful evening!
My favorite tradition however is Christmas morning... It starts out very early... Santa doesn't wrap at our house, so the kids wake up before the sun to see what Santa brought, they wake us up, and we play for a little while. Then, we all hurry to get ready to go and we meet up with friends to go sing Christmas Carols at a few local nursing homes. (Presents get opened after we got home.) My parents even make it up here by 9 AM to join us! We try to get as many people as we can to come along!
It all started for us when Austin was a baby and we were new to our ward. We heard that lots of people in the ward met at the church at 9 AM to go to a nursing home and an alzheimer's home to sing. We were hooked! We've tried to do it every year since (we've missed one here or there). When we moved to Chehalis we missed that part of our Christmas so we started a new group here. It helps that I love to sing all of the Christmas songs, but the highlight is definitely the sweet residents at those homes. Today there are a few stand out in my mind... One sweet lady started dancing at her door while we sang, one went into her room and got her harmonica to accompany us! She was good! There was a man who got tears in his eyes as we sang. Some of them sing along, tap their toe, most give us a beautiful smile! One man in a wheel chair, caught up to us in the hall after we passed his room and brought stuffed animals to all of the children with us. About 5 minutes later he found us again downstairs from his room. He had a HUGE stuffed raccoon that he gave Lindsay and asked her to find a child that didn't have a nice Christmas and give it to them. She took that charge VERY seriously and could hardly focus on anything else until she knew where it could go. Luckily, our friend Katrina knew of just the child and told Lindsay she knew of good home for it! Whew! I hope we brought some Christmas cheer to the peole we visit because they sure give it to me! It makes my heart warm to see my kids waving and wishing Merry Christmas to these sweet people that they don't know, shaking wrinkled hands, and hopefully for a minute, forgetting about themselves and realizing that Christmas is about giving and not so much about receiving. I love all of the friends and family that join us and I can't wait to do it all again next year!
And hey... If you're in the area we'd love to have you join us Christmas morning 2009!
What is your favorite Christmas tradition?
5 comments:
Merry Christmas....You are just the neatest family...I wish I wish we would have done something like that (singing in the nursing homes) when our kids were little. I guess it's never too late to start!! What a wonderful and selfless thing to teach the kids:)
We have several Christmas traditions (one of which is spending Christmas Eve with YOUR family)....
We put out a little tree on a table on December 1st with 24 wrapped books and each day the kids pick a book and we read it together. I have over 50 Christmas books so it's tough choosing which ones to wrap. Each year I put out a new book and the kids try to find it.
Wow...my favorite tradition is going to sound lame now. For the past 7 years, we've had hot cocoa and homemade cinamon rolls for Christmas breakfast. It all started when I was VERY pregnant with Allison and had a c-section scheduled for 3 days after Christmas. I couldn't sleep that morning, I was too excited about Allison coming! I got up and made hot cocoa and cinamon rolls for the family and we opened presents. It was so fun that we've done it ever year. Rachel even made the dough this year. I think my girls might carry on the tradition!
Well after reading your blog I am going to have a new Family Tradition next year. That is such a great idea. We always go to a few people's houses who are in need and drop off a box of food and gifts for them. That was my favorite part of Christmas growing up. It always made me appreciate how blessed I was.
The Tellez's actually told us about the carolling thing...maybe next year we will join you. I love the ornament idea. I think I might start doing that.
You are truly a kindred spirit Rene! I love you!
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