Christmas festivities

There are SO many ways to celebrate Christmas. Although the lights are pretty and the cookies are yummy, I hope we keep our eyes fixed on the reason for the season - the birth of our Lord and Savior! It is easy to feel overwhelmed in terms of buying and wrapping gifts or any other aspect of the holiday or to compare your family's celebration to someone else's and feel like you haven't done quite enough whether it's baking cookies, doing crafts, or decorating the house.

My discomfort with clutter definitely limits my desire to go "all out" with decorating. Before we had kids and when Nadia was very young, we got a real Christmas tree every year. The last 11 years we've lived very near a Christmas tree farm (our previous house plus this one), but we bought a fake tree a few years ago in light of #1 how expensive real trees have gotten and #2 how many needles I thought I'd be cleaning up around the house due to little kids having more contact with the tree than Paul or I ever did. We have definitely saved money by reusing an artificial tree, but there are moments (like when

others are posting pics of their kids at a Christmas tree farm on Facebook) when I wish we were still buying a real tree. The kids certainly don't care whether it's real or artificial. Having young kids means I am very thoughtful about what ornaments are placed near the bottom of the tree (within Oliver's reach). Last year many ornaments came off the tree every day, but it seems (so far) this year that I won't be redecorating the tree as often. The last couple of years we didn't put any lights up outside the house, but Paul did put up some icicle lights yesterday.

The last three years Nadia did her shopping for the family at AWANA, and Ian did that as well last year. It was nice as the kids would pick out gifts, and they would come home wrapped for each family member. I doubt our new church does this so this year I need to start a tradition of taking the kids shopping. They don't have enough money to actually pay for gifts for everyone unless they bought us each one thing from Dollar Tree (where everything costs $1) so I need to figure out an appropriate dollar amount, but I want them to go shopping and pick out gifts for their parents and siblings and wrap those gifts. When they are older and have more money at their disposal, I want them to pay for the gifts themselves.

For years I have been wanting to do an Advent calendar, and I finally bought one this fall. If I could do it over again, I would have bought a fabric one that was more expensive than the felt one I got, but this one will do the trick. Today was our first day of adding one item to the nativity scene, and we will do so every day until Christmas Eve. I am hoping this will be a Christmas tradition they will enjoy each year.  Speaking of a daily advent activity, I bought the Truth in the Tinsel pdf a couple of years ago, but I never did any of it, and frankly I have decided I don't want to because I don't want to do a daily craft. If one of my blog readers would enjoy this pdf, I would happily send it your way if you could use it with your kids. It looks great but just isn't my cup of tea. I will do some Christmas crafts with the kids, but  I am not interested in doing one a day.

The Elf on the shelf has also been very popular the last few years. I wasn't tempted at first because we don't promote the Santa side of Christmas and also because some very creative people have set the bar really high for what to do with that

little elf each day. Last year when it was on sale for 90% off at Target I bought the kit. I saw one website that suggested making it a kindness elf and every day have a different kind deed written down (ex. give homemade cookies to your neighbor or go caroling at a nursing home). I like that idea, but I think I'll wait until they're a bit older. I decided this year just to hide the elf each night, and I don't plan on doing anything that takes a lot of time on my part. The kids love hide and seek so it was fun to look for the elf this morning. It was very hard for them to agree on a name for the elf, but they finally settled on Blitz. Oliver was the first one to spot Blitz this morning. It took the other two a lot longer to find him up in the chandelier over the kitchen table.

I have ordered my photo Christmas cards, and today I've been working on the letter. My goal is to get those out in the mail in the next week. I am trying to whittle down my Christmas to do list so I won't feel overwhelmed.