Advent

I hate Christmas. Isn't that awful? Don't I sound

like a total scrooge?  So, let me rephrase that,

I hate what Christmas has become.

Like every good mother, or elderly person, I have spent the time

leading up to Christmas reminiscing about Christmases  past.

When I started seeing Christmas merchandise in the stores with the Halloween stuff, 

all before the month of October, I would mumble, "I hate Christmas." and 

then proceed to tell my kids about "The good ole' days", when

Christmas stuff didn't come out until

after Thanksgiving. That's right,

AFTER Thanksgiving.

Wow, I'm old.

I hate that I turn on the television and every commercial

talks about spending money, buying toys, gadgets, or cars.

I hate that the underlying message is the more you spend the happier you'll be.

If you buy enough, your family will have the perfect Christmas.

That's simply not true. I mean, sure, they'll be thrilled that morning, at that

moment, but I guarantee you that soon they'll want more, and

before you know it, Christmas will become nothing

more than a binge of consumerism.

Thus the reason I hate Christmas.  Money and things

will NEVER make you happy. Never.

One thing I love about being a mother is the fact that my children

absorb my values. That's a lot of power and a lot of pressure.

What I say, they say, what I think they think.  It's important

to me that they are absorbing the right things.

If I talk about everything that I want for Christmas, how will they

see the holiday?  If I talk about the newest gadget, greatest toy, biggest gift, what will

their values become?

Every year, Jon and I work to teach our kids that things are just

things. Money is only worth what you can do with it, and giving to others

is by far the best thing you can do.  We also work very hard

to create an atmosphere in our house that limits consumerism.

We celebrate the holidays by making gifts for the people that

we love. We spend our time doing things together

as a family.  Doing things together, sharing time

together, and giving to others are truly what makes special

Christmas memories.

For us, Christmas doesn't involve

 running out to buy the latest and greatest anything, because in a day, week, month,

something better will step in and take it's place.

This year, we've made our very own advent calendar.

The kids decorated paper gingerbread men, that we

strung on a garland, and hung on our front window.

Each gingerbread man has an activity that we'll do together, as

 a family, as we count down to Christmas.

The activities are simple, but fun. They're meaningful for the kids, for us,

and they help us all remember what Christmas really is.

Christmas isn't about all the gifts that we can get. It's not about buying something for

someone and then buying yourself the exact same thing, because hey, 

you deserve it. Christmas is about remembering that

one night, God sent His Son, for me, for you, for us.

He sent us the greatest gift we could ever hope for.

He sent us love, unconditional love. So this holiday season,

our family will be giving others love, lots and lots of love.

If you should receive a sweet handmade gift from one of my children,

it's not because we're cheap, or lazy, it's because we have

chosen to make Christmas about giving, really giving, 

from our hearts.

I hope that you too will enjoy this advent time,

and that this year the Christmas season will become a time of showing those

you love how important they really are to you.

Getting Ready For Christmas (Where did November go?)

I spent all of November away from my blog, because I 

 spent the month writing 

a novel. My brother  talked me into participating

in National Novel Writing Month.  I have to say, it was a lot of fun.

I was thrilled not just to write, but to achieve my goal.

Now, the Christmas season is already upon us. I still can't

believe it's December.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we made

our annual trip to a local tree farm.

It seemed incredibly strange to be hiking through mud

 instead of snow. The day that we went, the temperatures were

in the 60's!

It was the first time EVER that we've gotten our tree

without hats, mittens, gloves, boots, and complaints about

the cold. P. was THRILLED to be the one that

found our tree. Here it is, still in the field.

Baby J. and The Big K. got tired of waiting for the tree

to be chopped down, so they decided to do

some sword fighting. Ah, boys.

After chopping down the tree, it was time

for our tree decorating party. In our

family, everything is a party.  Like all good parties

we had sweets and eggnog!

The kids look forward to chopping and decorating our tree every year.

It's fun to see the older two kids sharing our traditions with the 

younger two.

Celebrating Christmas with the kids is always so much fun!

I hope that the traditions that we share as a family will

be happy memories that all four of them will have

as they grow up and have families of their own.