Holiday Cheer

I've been thinking a lot lately about how I want to celebrate the holidays with my own little family. For several years, either school or work have been so crazy and hectic around this time of year that the holidays have kind of flown by and I've barely gotten any celebrating in at all. Now that I'm a dedicated stay-at-home-for-real-mamma, I plan to rectify the situation. In style.

I've started compiling a list of holiday traditions that I feel can really help capture the spirit and meaning of the holidays for us. Some of these I've "borrowed" from friends and family--so if you see something that looks familiar on here, thanks for the idea. I probably got it from you.

And please feel free to add any meaningful traditions or activities you can think of; this certainly isn't an exhaustive list.

Thanksgiving:

1. Go for a family run on Thanksgiving morning. This may not sound like a great idea on a crazy, hectic morning when there is so much "stuff" to do, but if you are largely going to be spending the day feasting--and who doesn't love a good feast--and lounging watching football, you may be glad you did. Went for a run, I mean.

2. Post a Grateful List on the refrigerator at the beginning of Thanksgiving week and add to it throughout the next few days. Some people like to write things they are thankful for on slips of paper and keep them in a jar. That's great too, but I prefer to have them posted where I can see them.

3. Read the Thanksgiving Story. Most Christian families read, and even act out, the Christmas Story on Christmas Eve to help their kids keep in touch with the true meaning/reason for Christmas. Reading the Thanksgiving Story can have the effect of reminding us that Thanksgiving is really about showing our gratitude to God and celebrating blessings, not merely gorging on fabulous rolls and pies. Those are considerable perks however . . .

4. Write Thank You letters as a family. It is, after all, a holiday of thankfulness. Thanking the people who make a difference in our lives is entirely appropriate.

5. Allow each child to be in charge of preparing a dish (age appropriate). This year I'm going to have Amelia help make our cranberry punch.


Christmas

1. Have a count down to Christmas with bedtime stories. Whether it's 12 days, 25 days, or whatever, read one Christmas story every night until Christmas Eve to help kids get in the spirit. (By the way, I'm accepting Christmas book recommendations to help me implement this one.)

2. Participate in Sub for Santa or Angel Tree programs. We've done this the past two years and I can honestly say it has been the most memorable part of Christmas for Peter and myself each year.

3. Decorate with homemade decorations; paper snowflakes, gingerbread men and/or houses, string pop corn, make tree ornaments from favorite photos and toys, string up Christmas cards. There are countless resources for homemade decoration ideas online, but my favorite is of course the Queen Maven, Martha Stewart.

4. Visit Temple Square if you live in Utah, or some other light festival if you don't. My family has done this every year that I can remember (except that Christmas I spent in Northern Ireland) and I'm not sure Christmas could really come if we didn't.

5. In keeping with remembering that Christmas is really about Christ, I like the idea of allowing each child to pick out a small, inexpensive picture of Jesus to keep in their room as the first gift of the season. (With Amelia's tract record, we'll be lucky if the picture makes it to Christmas Day.)

6. Christmas pedicures! We'll do these at home, I'm not about to pay to take my toddler to the salon. But I love the idea!

7. My very favorite thing that my in-laws did with their children was that the kids made homemade nativity scenes. Then they put them away and gave them to each child on their first Christmas with their spouse. The nativity set we have is one my husband made when he was four years old--I bet it's the only nativity set in the world that includes, elephants, a rhinoceros, snakes, and a beaver.

This is what I have come up with, of course adding in holiday baking, music, and all the indispensable Christmas movies. And I'm planning on recreating a cute Christmas advent calendar that I saw at Pottery Barn last year and couldn't afford to buy. Oh, and you can bet I'll take many many millions of photos of my child and probably post too many of them here, but then, that's what mommy blogging is all about.

Happy Holidaying!