Christmas Traditions 2019

Traditions fill my love cup all the way to the tippy top ~ and Christmas traditions are extra special. There's just something about the Christmas season that makes traditions during the month of December extra special. Thankfully, my family loves all the corny traditions too. This year we all worked extra hard to get all of our favorite traditions done before Abby Lou was born.

To kick off our Christmas traditions we began our daily Advent study on the first Sunday after Thanksgiving. For our Advent tradition we light the coordinating candle(s), read our lesson, and sing a Christmas hymn. 

On December first our little elf friends arrived bringing donuts, yogurt, orange juice, and their coordinating story books and movies. Our children know they are not real, we just use them as a fun treasure hunt each day leading up to Christmas.

We started a new tradition this year with a trip to a drive-thru light display. They had an activity center set up as well with all kinds of fun holiday booths and food vendors. We went on Black Friday night and it was perfect, with minimal folks there and mild weather. Hopefully our town will continue with this seasonal attraction and we can make it a yearly tradition. 

We took a trip to The Bass Pro Shop, which is about an hour away. We pretty much only go there at Christmas and even then we don't buy much, it's more for the fun of it than the shopping experience. 

Christmas decorating is a family affair in our home. The children really got into the spirit this year and pretty much handled all of the decorating inside and out.

We have a couple of totes full of special Christmas toys that only get brought out at Christmastime. The children love setting up little villages and playing with them.

We had our Grinch Night complete with Grinch munch and hot cocoa.

The little ones especially loved our How the Grinch Stole Christmas movie night.

Every year we do a family ministry project and this year was no different. Christmastime is a great opportunity to teach children how to give to others and share the love of Christ.

We went to see the Friendship Santa. We are so blessed with a local family who volunteers their time and energy to spreading Christmas cheer. They go "all out" decorating their yard, dressing up as Santa, and passing out hot cocoa, cookies, and goodie bags to children all for FREE! They are truly a blessing to our community.

The Friendship Santa has these giant reindeer on display ~ they are amazing!! (My boys are over 6 feet tall, just to give you an idea of how tall these reindeer are.)

We had our Polar Express family movie night with cookies and hot cocoa.

We passed out homemade cookie bags to our neighbors. 

We bought our family ornament.

I made and sent out family picture Christmas cards. A dying tradition, but one I love to do. 

We went to a Christmas parade where our oldest was dressed up as "Thing One". We had no idea he was dressing up until he came strolling down the road, it was such a fun surprise.

We went on our Mini Van Polar Express light tour. Well now I guess it would be more appropriate to say "15 passenger van", but y'all get the drift, lol.

Our light tour begins with mama hiding tickets under everyone's pillows during the day (without my kiddos knowing), we have an early bedtime, while one of us parents is putting children to bed the other is fixing hot cocoa and cookies to bring on the tour. Once everything is ready, my husband takes our train whistle and blows it down the hallway 'waking everyone up' with "All aboard the Polar Express, get your tickets". Once everyone is up, and loaded in the van, they trade their tickets for a cup of hot cocoa and a cookie.

We then drive around looking at Christmas lights listening to Christmas music. This is one of my most favorite family Christmas traditions!

Another new tradition this year was to make Santa pancakes on "Christmas Adam" (what we call the day before Christmas Eve). I saw a friend make these super cute Santa pancakes and I just had to 'steal her idea'.

Not that great of a picture, but the night before Christmas we read the "Night before Christmas" while drinking hot cocoa. 

And our last tradition is our Christmas stockings. Another favorite Christmas tradition of mine. You could take all the presents away, but please just leave my stockings. I've made seven of our children their own stockings, and I am planning to make the other three this year. We fill the stockings with toiletries, snacks, and small unique gift items. 

Traditions are not a necessity to celebrate Christmas, but I love the activities we do. They are so special to me and I will always treasure the memories we've made doing these traditions. I'm already making plans for how they will be adapted for when we have grandchildren, lol. Life is too short not to make every moment count, and all these traditions is just one way I try to make the most out of the Christmas season.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Homemade Christmas 2019

Today I'd like to share a couple homemade Christmas projects/gifts we made this year. 

I love Christmas and all it's festivities, but some times folks can take it too far, especially in the gift giving department. Yes, we exchange store-bought gifts within our family, but as great as those are, I think the homemade gifts are just as special, if not more. 

To be perfectly honest, I'd like to get back to the simple days when it was maybe one store-bought gift, a couple homemade gifts, plus a stocking. I suppose those days are long gone, and that's ok, because I believe we can still keep Christmas sweet and simple even in our current modern culture.

Some years we give more homemade gifts than others, but we always create some form of homemade gifts to give. Every year my husband requests a picture gift that he can put at his desk at work. And each year I try to make something creative and different. This year I thought I'd try making him a calendar.

First, I had the children paint watercolors onto card stock to create a 'tie-dyed' look.

Then I found a free 2020 calendar template online.

Next I printed the calendar onto the card stock that the children had painted.

Before I assembled the calendar I printed off pictures of each one of our children, one of my husband and me, a family picture, and one of all the children.

The next step was to find twelve bible verses to print on the reverse side of the calendar. I tried to choose verses that were relative to that month or season.

I glued the pictures onto the backside of the calendar papers next to the Bible verses.

I tried matching the children's pictures close to their birthday months.

Before Abigail was born, we only had two children with the same birthday month. So it was fairly easy to match the children's pictures to their birthday month.

Due to time constraints I wasn't able to get a picture of Abigail printed for this calendar. 

I decided to put mine and my husband's picture in February ~ for Valentine's Day. And I put our family picture for the month of October since that's when our anniversary is, and when we celebrate the beginning of our family.

I decided to laminate the pages once I had all the pages finished.

Finally, I hole punched the pages and connected them with three 1-inch rings.

Our last project we did for Christmas was actually completed on Christmas Eve. {{Yikes}} Nothing like a last minute project.

My parents were kind enough to send some money along with the children's gifts to buy "stocking stuffer" items. When I bought the children's Christmas goodies from grandma and grandpa, I didn't think to buy something to put the stuff into, hence the last minute goodie bags we made.  

My twelve year old was kind enough to help me cut out the pieces for these reindeer goodie bags. I had a variety of circle punches which I used to cut out most of the pieces. For the antlers, I just free handed a template onto card stock and we traced it 20 times, lol. 

Here's all the reindeer goodie bags filled and placed in front of the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. I thought they were so cute and looked like a heard of reindeer.

Now, homemade gifts can end up costing more than store-bought gifts if you aren't careful; but, thankfully, both of these projects were pretty cheap to make. The bags were completely made with leftover craft supplies, and the only 'extra' cost of the calendar was the price of having the pictures printed. Everything else we used to make the calendar, I already had readily available in our home. While it does take space to store crafting supplies, sometimes it can pay off, especially when you can inexpensively make heart-felt homemade gift for family and friends.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Christmas Pictures 2019

Christmas Pictures 2019.

If I could only have one thing for Christmas every year it would be pictures of my babies. Last year was a total bust due to the fact that I let another photographer take our Christmas pictures ~ NEVER again. I never saw those pictures and I can never get that moment back!

I started learning the art of photography 11 years ago because photographers in our area are overpriced and undependable. While I may not be a professional, and I still have much to learn, I'll take my pictures over no pictures any day of the week!

Lydia Rose, a few weeks shy of 2 years old. 

I try to narrow it down to just one picture per child, but Lordy be that can be hard when they all turn out so stinking cute!

Titus Alexander, 3 years old.

Since we've taken our Christmas pictures this year, Titus continues to ask quite often if it's 'picture day' again, lol.

Samuel Carter, 5 years old.

Matthew Tyler, 7 years old.

Joshua Cole, 10 years old.

Lucas Tanner, 12 years old.

It's hard finding appropriate poses for boys, especially as they get older. Thankfully my boys seldom give me fits and do whatever I ask in terms of posing and taking pictures. I think their mantra is "hurry up and get it over with, please."

Tabitha Paige, a few weeks shy of 14 years old.

Elijah Jackson, 16 years old.

Isaac Tristan, 19 years old.

So thankful for my 16 year old who was willing to take a few Christmas pictures of dear ol' mom and dad. He's getting pretty good and just may put me out of my yearly job pretty soon.

I didn't think this year's Christmas pictures were going to happen either. We had scheduled a trip to a local Christmas tree farm, but we had last minute scheduling conflicts. To be honest, I don't care where the pictures take place as long as they happen, I'm good to go. Sadly, I'm realizing the older we all get, the less likely they will happen to the extent, I'd prefer. But, I 'll take what I can get and be grateful, treasuring all the pictures I can take of my precious gifts from heaven.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

P.S. I can't wait for next year when we get to add little Abby Lou to the mix!