December Days

The days are just flying by here, and I can't believe we are at the end of the first week of December already.  We enjoyed a very nice Thanksgiving, and were lucky to spend time with both of our families in a non-rushed, long weekend.  The weather has been quite mild, much warmer than is typical for this time of year.  But we've had some very cold days sprinkled in too.  It's enough to keep things interesting and it's nice not to have winter blasted at us all of a sudden:)

We've been enjoying preparing for the Christmas season and can't get enough of the kids excitement!  Last Friday night Ed put up our "artificial" Christmas tree after the kids went to bed, so that they could discover it in the morning.  I love doing this every year because it is such fun to see them wake up to the lights of the Christmas tree, so animated and excited.

Saturday morning, December 1st, had been much anticipated for Advent calendars.  The kids do 2 Advent calendars, and love them both.  They get to start their morning off with chocolate (the yummiest German chocolate ever!) as they search for the right number on their chocolate Advent calendars.

Then they head to the very special Advent calendars Ed's mom has made for all of them.  Sam talks about his all year, and after this year, I'm sure the girls will too.  This is the first year the girls are doing this Advent calendar and they get such joy out of it too.  The anticipation of which ornament will be in the pocket each morning is discussed as soon as they get out of bed (okay, as soon as they have gulped down their chocolate).  Then they get to choose where they want to hang that day's ornament on the tree.  It's all a very exciting process!  We all love these calendars:)

This year we also went and got a "real" Christmas tree.  My family always had one when I was growing up and I have really missed having a real tree in the house at Christmas time.  I wanted the whole experience of searching for a tree and bringing it home.  The weather was perfect last weekend for this occasion.

Sam tried sawing the tree...but it turned out to be a bit more difficult than he thought:)  We brought our selection home and then put it in the stand and voila! we now have 2 Christmas trees this year!

We've been busy taking down Thanksgiving turkeys and replacing them with Christmas pictures.  One day Sam got on a coloring kick and colored non-stop (with only a short break for supper) from the time he got home until he went to bed.  This is quite rare for him as he enjoys coloring, but usually only 1 picture at a time.  By the time he was ready for bed, he had colored 15 Christmas-themed pictures!  The girls have been enjoying anything that has to do with glitter glue:)

After much internal debating, last night I decided to let the kids decorate one of our trees with ornaments that haven't seen the light of day for years.  It's been a tough decision because nothing is off-limits in this house with the girls, especially Mollie.  Sam was always pretty good about not touching things he knew he wasn't suppose to.  I think Emmeline would be the same way if it weren't for her very adventurous sister:)  Mollie has a way to get to whatever it is that interests her.  I was ready to do another year with an "ornament-less" tree.  But Sam was so excited to put them on that I threw caution to the wind (not easy for me:) and decided to just do it.  After all, these are some pretty special memories and traditions we are creating, and what is a Christmas tree without ornaments:)  The other tree is decorated with jingle bells and paper ornaments the kids have colored.

The kids were so excited, I couldn't hand out ornaments fast enough.  There was some pushing and shoving, as was expected with only me handing them out and 3 sets of eager hands ready to put the next one on.  It's always fun to see how little kids load up one area of the tree and let the rest fairly empty.  I have to say they did a really nice job and wish they could put more ornaments on every night.

And last night was our first go at St. Nick.  St. Nick is big deal in the area where we live.  Neither Ed nor I had families that celebrated St. Nick when we were growing up.  I know lots of my friends had visits from St. Nick, but I remember the only thing I got in my stocking one year when I begged for him to come to our house, was a quarter:)  I had started the tradition with our kids, of filling their stockings on Christmas morning.  Now that Sam is in school, St. Nick is almost inevitable to avoid.  I'm not one to cave to peer pressure very often, especially when it comes to "more stuff/things we don't need," but the whole idea behind why St. Nick came to be celebrated appeals to me.  It has just been terribly confusing for me to try to explain it to Sam.  Some people don't tell their children about how St. Nicholas was a saint who did really nice things for other people and gave most of his money away to people who needed it.  St. Nick seems to be synonymous with Santa Claus, and how do you explain that Santa comes on the night of Dec 5th (Dec 6th is a day to honor Saint Nicholas) to fill stockings AND then on Christmas Eve.  I started to tell Sam the real story of St. Nicholas, but then ran into the whole part about him not being alive anymore and that really threw Sam for a loop.  I could just see him telling other kids at school that his mom told him St. Nick is really dead.  Yikes!  Good thing he's young enough that he doesn't question most of what we tell him...yet.  So I was able to then say that St. Nick is one of Santa's helpers who is named after a very special person who lived long ago that did really nice things for other people...the spirit of giving.  Very long story...but in the end, it's what's in the stocking that counts, even if it's just little things like some chocolate coins, a really big apple, some peanuts in their shells, a new pair of gloves and a Hot Wheels car.

Oh the stress, I mean JOY!, of Christmas.  I'm just blessed to be able to see Christmas through the eyes of 3 little believers, and it brings the whole meaning of Christmas full-circle.   Amazement...wonder...faith...belief...miracles...and trying to never lose sight of the greatest miracle and "reason for the season," Jesus' birth.