Christmas Traditions

For many years, I wished to hibernate through Christmas. The holidays really bring out the heartache and loss. But as my kids get older, they get soo excited about Christmas traditions, my house is filled with joy and peace.

We don't get invited to Christmas parties, we don't do Christmas pageants or school plays. Therefore, we have lots of time for fun memory making moments. together. at home. The first years with my kids, I focused on making memories and keeping Christmas low key. That has really paid off and each year we add new fun activities.

Due to allergies we can not have a real tree. This was a hard tradition to give up. Plus I was having a hard time shelling out the money for a nice fake tree. But God totally blessed us!! We found a tree on an online yardsale. Brand new, BEAUTIFUL, prelit, 6.5 ft tree for $20!! Yes, TWENTY DOLLARS!! I am still in awe of this miracle. I had not planned to buy big tree this year and certain children of mine reacted very negatively to my decision. But when this very amazing deal came up, I decided to overlook their attitude and buy the tree. It took me a little while to have a good attitude about the whole situation. But now I am so thankful I purchased it!


We had planned to do Jesse Tree   but with getting the large tree and my printer not working to print out the ornaments I decided to skip that.

We are doing Focus on the Family's Advent instead. I bought the advent candles and we are reading the scriptures listed on the website. This is turning into a really neat experience. Plus we listened to Tony Evans for church this morning. Good, Good message! Can I just say, my children are loving all this?!?

We do some of the secular things like listening to Christmas music 24/7 for weeks before Christmas on the local Christmas station. They love the little Christmas medleys.

We are also doing a gift exchange this year. We had originally planned a weekend getaway/family vacation instead of gifts. But honestly with all the health challenges we have I was afraid we would end up ruining Christmas so I decided to do gifts. Every other year I bought one big gift for all the kids. One year it was a pregnant mini horse, one year a trampoline, one year a ping pong table, one year a huge lego set, and I was just out of options this year. So we decided to change things up. I had the kids do a secret santa exchange. They each get to make a list, then we exchange names and each kid buys their sibling a gift. We did all our shopping online and with some careful bargain shopping and lots of prayer I have found some INCREDIBLY unbelievable deals. So we had the fun of looking online, dreaming and wishing together. Then individually shopping with me. Next week the packages should start arriving. So then we have package delivery and the wrapping fun! Do you think the kids will actually be able to keep it a secret until Christmas?!

We currently have the tree up and each night the kids turn off all the other lights. It feels magical. the kids are learning to knit and do needlepoint. We sit in our cozy little house, by our tree with Christmas music in the background working on our projects....

It's not all perfect but it is such a wonderful way to connect and bond as a family. In the words of Karen Purvis, I am making deposits so that withdrawals will be less painful!

Thanksgiving..

Thanksgiving.. Holidays are complicated. Holidays are hard when your loved ones are gone.

Holidays are fun and exciting when you are a kid. Holidays are delightful and filled with magic when you are loved and secure.


My kitchen helper's on Monday.

This year we decided to do thanksgiving lunch at home. The kids really enjoy helping me cook, so it did not feel overwhelming. We love turkey and I cook turkey frequently through out the year.

Crockpot mashed potatoes

However, because I know how my life goes, we started cooking on Monday. Lee and David mucked out the barn then came in and begged to make pumpkin custard. I believe in teaching my children all kinds of life skills and Lee makes a better pumpkin custard then I ever will...
I made mashed potatoes (which I froze in a crockpot) and Elizabeth made oreo pudding for dessert!

I was really glad we had worked ahead because Tuesday and Wednesday passed quickly and I did not have time to do more cooking!! 

Thanksgiving morning from my back deck!

Wednesday brought us a beautiful snow day.. absolutely beautiful!

So back to Thanksgiving.. we had originally invited my family for the holiday but no one was able to make it. We can not do the 6 hour drive to family due to health/allergy issues and my absolute paranoia of driving in over the mountains in the snow in a 15 passenger van loaded with precious cargo.

We then made plan B. Take a trip to the beach for the weekend. We had made preliminary plans and started working out details but things just did not come together. So the kids and I decided to do our own formal Thanksgiving dinner! 

 
We pulled out my wedding china. We set the table all nice and fancy like.. 

We may have forgotten to get dressed, something I realized when I went to take the pictures as we sat down for lunch.. this picture is #reallife 

My 10 yr old's lunch plate!

The kids had been out sledding for the majority of the morning, while I prepped food. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, corn, and salad for the first course..

I cheated and bought stuffing in a box and gravy in a jar. #reallife

Dessert.. oreo pudding and pumpkin custard!

This is the second holiday we have done at home where I prepared the food. The kids and I are really liking this tradition. It feels good. I want this for years and years and years to come..

This is what you eat for lunch when you are on a limited diet.. holidays are hard.

Everyone pitched in to help with clean up..

My first thought after lunch was  "why, oh why, did I think using china was a good idea?!?!?" 

But when everyone works together the work is fine and is done quickly.

We spend the afternoon coating chocolates. This was a first and the kids loved it. We made chocolate covered chips, chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate covered ritz crackers and chocolate covered sour patch kids!! That was def a a highlight in our day! 

We were invited to the in laws for the evening. We left our house around 4 pm and headed to Grandma's house. The boys watched football with the "men" while the girls begged to learn how to play settlers. 

Yes, Lady gets to go to Grandma's house too.. 

This rowdy bunch of boys had a lot of fun wrestling!

This was one of our best Thanksgivings ever. I love hanging out with my kids, they are old enough to actually have real conversations with, to really hang out, to do things together.

Winter, Snow Days..

I am loving this winter.. Snow came early. It's cold outside and cozy in my house! 

The kids love to wrestle. The two middle ones tend to work together to pin down Lee. However, he finally figured out how to get them both down! He was quite proud of himself! 

Lady and Nesiah are becoming friends...They hang out while the other kids are outside or tearing around.. 

Warm vanilla milk is a must for cold, snowy winter evenings.

It's a white Thanksgiving! 

They played for hours and hours in the snow.

My snow princess!

We are blessed to live a hillside were the kids can sled any time they want. They spend hours and hours outside, sledding, building snowmen and having snowball fights.

The animals are waiting for the kid to bring them hay and grain!