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| Helping dad set up the tree. |
This Christmas was magical for a few reasons:
1. Jon's schedule wasn't very demanding. Unlike Thanksgiving, he didn't have to work Christmas eve or day, and was also off on new year's eve and day. And maybe a few days in between... I can't recall--it all felt like a gloriously long weekend where we got to have great family time. Reality set back in this morning when Jon was up at 5:00 to be at work by 6:00. In short, we'll see him on Sunday.
2. Back to the positive. This year, we decided to observe advent for the first time as a family (pronounced, "owvent," if you were to ask D).
This has been the answer to a question I've been mulling over since David was born--especially this year, since he's old enough to be captivated by kid's toy advertisements. The question being: how do I demonstrate the truth that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of our Savior? How do I focus his anticipation on THAT, while still doing fun Christmassy things (without having the excitement of a new Skylander toy eclipse the excitement of the gift of Jesus)?
For those of you with more wisdom and well-established Christmas traditions, this may be a non-issue--and if you have suggestions, I'd love to hear from you! For us, we're still 'trying on' Christmas traditions and figuring out ways to show D what our faith is all about.
Three-year-old-friendly nativity. The two other wise men, not featured, were played by Iron Man and Spider Man. Sometimes there were tigers.
Advent calendar things.
Advent candles. As a child, I associated candles with really special occasions. Birthdays, fancy dinners, Christmas eve services at church (where I would always burn at least one finger with hot wax). I still feel this way, although now I understand the value of holding candles upright.
This year, at a women's advent tea I attended, we made advent wreaths out of split logs and silk flowers. Arm a bunch of resident and staff wives with enough hot glue guns and craft supplies and some beautiful things can happen:)
Once I explained what it was, D was fascinated by it too and insisted that we practice lighting and blowing out the candles three times before we used it at dinner the first night.
3. We had very much the 'white Christmas.'
Last Christmas, we also had snow, but that was accompanied by three days without power. That wasn't the case this year. We were able to enjoy a nice, simple Christmas, and D and Jon were able to bundle up to play outside for a while knowing that they would return to a house with heat. And cookies.
And now a photo unload of the last month:)
More tree assembly. Serious stuff.
Tree decorating.
More decorating... This was actually a daily practice--removing the ornaments (usually with his claw-grabber toy) and then re-trimming the tree later.
Making salt dough ornaments to send to family.
"Mom, I'm making you dinner."
Preparing to go outside.
Learning the value of an honest morning's labor...
[2 minutes later]....aaaand that's enough of that.
Bundled with dad:)
"Dad, I want to wear on your glasses."
Jenn 800 weeks pregnant. Or 34 weeks.
On days where it's too cold to play outside, we have some nice indoor options.
Cookie baking.
The 'dad' cookie.
When we moved from Little Rock to Wisconsin, we decided to leave our small supply of Christmas trappings in storage because of space issues. So this year, we had fun making (mostly kid-friendly) things to hang on our tree.
Clothespins and hot glue! Hot glue is a running theme, can you tell?
We all agreed that the angry owl was a mistake. Nothing says 'Christmas' like an art deco owl glowering at you from underneath your child's happy hand-print ornament.
Christmas tarantula. Courtesy of D.
Normally, I wouldn't post so many tree pictures, but the process of making things with D throughout the month is the point I want to emphasize. There were days where I was searching for creative things to do with him and I found some really helpful tutorials online:
Clothespin snowflakes and monogram ornaments
Christmas tree music paper
Jute wrapped ornament
Craft stick and clay pot children's tutorial
Felt and pinecone owls
Bird in a pot
Christmas morning!
Milk noms.
Post-Christmas-morning-snow play with dad.
Not even the snow can keep this boy from getting in some good swing time.
Dad's foot, D's foot.
We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year!
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