Our December was full of holiday activities. We started the month with our church putting on "The Nativity: A Christmas Celebration." Allen was a wise man in a short program and Carter and Jared were wise men in the live nativity they had outside the church. The whole gym was transformed into a display of nativities from around the world.
Claire had a piano recital. She is in the middle of her second year of taking lessons and still loves it.
We picked out our tree and decorated it. It was our biggest one so far, about 10+ feet tall. I loved looking at it everyday.
I want to take the time to write down our family Christmas traditions as they are now, so years from now I can look back and remember. They have changed through the years, but for the past few years this is what we do in the month of December:
-The kids favorite tradition is doing the 12 days of Christmas for a family. We pick a family with at least some young kids that we think would enjoy getting little surprises every night, but won't try and catch us. Also, the location has to work well; no cul-de-sacs, etc. The kids love to help decide what to give and love to be the ones to run to the doorstep and run away. When we started this only Allen or I could do the dropping off. I like it much more now that even Claire can take part in it.
-We have a advent calendar with candy, but the count down that we really enjoy is one we started several years ago. We make a chain to count down to Christmas and on each link we write something we love about each member of our family. Each day we open the link and read it together, then put it on the wall so we can see it all month. Seeing what each kid puts about everyone is always fun. This year Carter and Jared put the same thing for me: "She always makes sure we do fun things as a family and she drives me to all my activities." I found that very interesting.
-For the past several years we have gone over to a friend's house who host a Christmas sing along. Several families sing Christmas carols, visit, and eat yummy food.
-We pick out and decorate our Christmas tree as a family. We play Christmas music as we decorate. I do the lights and ribbon and any added greenery first, because I like it done a certain way. We love to look at all our vacation ornaments and remember great times together. I love to see the ornaments with the kids pictures from when they were younger.
-We make a white chocolate chex mix to give to our friends. We make my grandma's fudge and make and decorate sugar cookies just for us and family that comes over during the holidays. This year Carter made white chocolate peppermint bark for himself because he usually doesn't like most the goodies our friends give us.
-Claire didn't want to go sit on Santa's lap this year, so I guess that tradition is gone. She said the letter she typed in computer class to Santa would be enough.
-Christmas Eve: Usually Grammy and Grandpa come over and give their gifts to the kids. They also open one gift from under the tree. A few times we have gone ice skating with the cousins, but not this year. We go to Grammy's for pizza and the cousins act out the nativity as Grammy reads the story of Christ's birth. She has costumes for all the parts. This is a tradition that I did as a kid so I love to see my children do it too. Then we are off to Mimi and Grand dad's church for their candlelight Christmas Eve service. This is what Allen did every year growing up and I love continuing it with our family. After the service we head to a restaurant to eat appetizers and desserts. As we head home we drop off our last day of the 12 days. We also drop off a "Christmas jar" along with the book, Christmas Jar, to a family we feel may need it. Once home we lay stockings on the couch so Santa knows where to put the gifts and we put letters to Santa in the stockings. The kids sleep in the same room (at least start out and end that way). After they are to bed, Allen and I open our gifts to each other. I love this tradition. I love having this alone time with Allen, reminiscing about the day, talking about the exciting day to come.
-Christmas Day: The kids line up on the stairs and wait for us to get our cameras ready and say they can come down to see what Santa brought them. Then we eat our traditional William Sonoma croissants (plain, chocolate filled, and ham and cheese-yum!). Next we dig into our presents from and to each other. Sometime that morning Mimi and Grand dad come by to see what the kids got. We usually head over to my parent's house around lunch time and visit and exchange gifts. The cousins love showing each other what Santa brought them. We head home for dinner, which the last few years we started a new tradition of having Allen grill some filet mignons to perfection and have baked potatoes and some green with them. We usually get back together with the Sextons that night to play whatever new board game we got.
-The day after Christmas: Allen's sister, Kelly, and her family come in town and we get to have another Christmas! Marianne always makes a wonderful traditional Christmas dinner, then we open gifts which usually includes many surprises and games from Larry.
Writing all this down makes me sad it is over for this year. I can't wait until next year!
This ornament was given to us several years ago by my very talented artist sister in law, Susan. She made this little book that you write about each Christmas on its pages. It is our favorite ornament to pull out each year. We love to read over the past Christmases and be reminded of the gifts given, events that happened, and memories made. Thanks Susan!
to this...
and later, Jared took it one step further...
they are their father's sons
ice staking on Christmas Eve
sleeping in the hide out 
Christmas morning
Jared is really into yin and yang, and so he made this creation
we got to experience ICE
we won't mention what it took to get there
came from her brother...
