What Is It Really About? - Around The Home
(You can find this weeks Menu Monday post at the bottom of this one)
(You can find this weeks Menu Monday post at the bottom of this one)
So we talked yesterday about our family's purpose in celebrating the holiday season. - Thanksgiving - Thanksgiving for God's willingness to come to earth and die a horrible death so that I might have eternal life. Thanksgiving for the opportunity to serve Him and glorify Him here on earth. Thanksgiving for the many blessings that He so abundantly bestows upon us.
- Sharing - We focus on sharing the above mentioned things with others along with love, joy and peace.
- Focus On Our Family - Embrace the opportunities of the season to spend time pursuing each of our family members and our family unit as a whole.
- Plan family activities during the season. We will bake together, watch movies together, read books together, etc. We usually make a schedule where Monday is baking day, Tuesday is movie day, Wednesday is craft day and so on. When we bake or make a craft, we try and make enough to share with at least one other person or family.
- We are very reluctant to commit to activities that don't at least involve 2 family members as our time is precious and focusing on our family is very important to us.
- Observe advent as a family. This includes a Christmas hymn each night, Bible reading and story. Get the supplies and make your advent wreath together.
- We usually go and cut our Christmas tree down at a Christmas Tree Farm together the day after Thanksgiving. What fun!!! We walk around for a couple of hours until all of the trees look the same and then pick the "perfect" tree!!
- Wrap your Christmas books and put them under the tree! You can open one each evening beginning Dec. 1st (If you don't have enough books, just rewrap some! They love hearing them over and over!)
- We go a little crazy in the decorating department! We do this using what we have or making things together. Last year we did our living room and tree all in homemade Christmas ornaments and decor from nature! It was really fun to make it all together and even more fun to look at each day. This does not have to be expensive at all! It definitely does not look pretty to everyone, but boy howdy do we love it!!
- Try to have other families over whenever possible. It is always a blessing to serve others at our dinner table or even to just sit and visit in the living room. Take time out to share your life with others and to serve them in your home.
- When you decorate your tree, have a little family party! This year we had finger foods for dinner and ate in front of a roaring fire in the fire place (or course, we had to turn the A/C down really low to get it cold enough in the house so we did not melt :)).
- Hang on to your Christmas cards! We have saved our cards for over five years. It is so fun to go back through them and look at everyone's pictures, read them and pray for the families.
- Try to have a caroling party! This is an easy way to share with your neighbors in the Christmas season and involve your family and friends. Invite a few families over and ask everyone to bring a finger food to share. Eat and fellowship and then practice singing through about 2 Christmas carols that you all know. Now head out!! Ring the bell and start singing! We have had great reception when we have tried this and a great time!
- On Christmas Eve, we have a Jesus birthday party. The girls and I bake and decorate a cake, we sing Happy Birthday Jesus and blow out candles. Then we listen to William read the Christmas story. Our reasoning behind this is that on Christmas Eve, everyone begins to get really excited about what Christmas morning brings. This is time to slow it all down again and bring our thoughts and focus back on Christ and the gift that He gave us.
- Take a trip driving around town together and look at Christmas lights. Pack some hot chocolate in a thermos, some snacks and a little Christmas music and go look in wonder at the beautiful lights!!
- I have told you that we don't do gifts, but we do have a little visit on Christmas Eve from an "elf." He sneaks into the girls' room and leaves them each a new pair of pajamas!! It is a fun tradition that we all look forward to and it makes for nice pictures Christmas morning!
- Once the kids are out of school, plan a pj and movie day!! Go through and watch your favorite Christmas movies all day long!
- Take time to play games together!
- We usually give up gifts in lieu of taking a trip. Our girls know that we take a trip, but they don't know where we go each year. The first year we did this we found a cabin a few hours north of us. We had seen pictures and knew that when you drove up, there was a large fire pit surrounded by totem poles. In August, William began telling the girls a story at bedtime, once a week, about a group of sisters who went on an adventure. Each time he told the story, he would describe one aspect about the house. It was such a treat for them to drive up and see the house that they had heard about for months in his story!! (we could only do this that one year, after that, they were on to us!!)
- One night, usually the week before Christmas, we have my brother, and Mimi and Grampy over for a gingerbread house decorating contest. We call it gingerbread houses, but it is really graham crackers, some really, really stiff icing and tons of candy! We usually have 60 minutes to construct and decorate using what supplies are provided and then we vote for the top one. This is really fun and we always get a chuckle out of looking at what we all come up with.
- Don't try to make everything perfect. It is not worth it and probably won't happen! Just enjoy your family and soak in the blessings that God has given you.
- Never, ever, EVER get too busy to spend time with the Lord each day. If you find that you are running out of time, or are too tired, or whatever your excuse might be, change your schedule. There is no way to have a heart full of thanksgiving, love, joy and peace and be ready to share it with the world if you are not spending time with the one who fills your heart with those things.
Several people have asked if we do "Santa" and if so, how do we explain that to the girls. We do Santa, but instead of gifts he fills the stockings that they get on Christmas morning. When we first had children, a concern of ours was how to deal with Santa. It was a fun part of AcCOWntant Willie's and my childhood, but we had heard stories of children questioning the existence of God when they found out that Santa was not real.
What we decided to do has worked well for us! We tell the girls that Santa stuffs their stocking, but usually around age 5 (earlier for some), they ask if Santa is real. When they ask that, we ask them if they really want to know the truth. Two of the girls said nope! And we went on until the next year when they would ask again.
Once they say that they want to know the truth, we tell them. It is funny, because knowing the truth never affected their excitement or the fun they have seeing their stockings. In fact, DD #2 sighed a huge sigh of relief and said that she was so happy to find that out! Apparently it had always scared her to think that some man came down our chimney and into the house while we were sleeping!!
This is a very personal decision that each family needs to make, but that is how we handled it.
So, if you don't have one already, how about sitting down and making a schedule of family activities!! If you work and don't have time to do elaborate things during the week, don't fret! Just plan things like having dinner as a picnic sitting in front of your Christmas tree, or perhaps learn a new Christmas song together. Make a plan so that you can capture special moments while focusing on your family!! How do you bring Christmas into your home?
Tomorrow we will begin our two day talk on how our family brings the purpose of our Christmas season to the community. See y'all then!!
Menu Monday
Monday Breakfast - Whole Wheat Banana Muffins/Eggs/Melons
Monday Lunch - We usually meet my mom for lunch on this day!
Monday Dinner - Sandwiches/Fruit (We have deep cleaning as a family after dinner on Mondays. We have found that if we all work together, we can get it done in about 1 1/2 hours and then we have a special "clean house" dessert!!)
Monday Snack - Mix of nuts, seeds and chocolate chips
Tuesday Breakfast - Eggs/Whole Wheat Biscuits/Hash Browns with Peppers/Citrus Fruit
Tuesday Lunch - Baked Potatoes/Steamed Broccoli/Cheese
Tuesday Dinner - Spaghetti with Meat Sauce (set aside extra ground turkey or beef for tacos tomorrow and extra sauce for Friday's dinner)/Green Peas/Salad/Garlic Bread
Tuesday Snack - Sonic Happy Hour Run for Slushies
Wednesday Breakfast - Whole Wheat Waffles/Peanut Butter/Strawberries
Wednesday Lunch - Soft Tacos (made with meat from last night)/Tortilla Chips/Salsa
Wednesday Dinner - Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup/Homemade Bread
Wednesday Snack - Peanut Butter Balls
Thursday Breakfast - Cinnamon Bread/Cream Cheese/Strawberries
Thursday Lunch - Sandwiches/Fruit
Thursday Dinner - Crockpot BBQ Chicken/Steamed Asparagus/Corn on the Cob
Thursday Snack - Peanut Butter Balls
Friday Breakfast - Yogurt/Granola/Fruit/Nuts
Friday Lunch -Pizza Wraps/Red Pepper Strips/Salad/Organic Chocolate Bar
Friday Dinner - Boil In A Bag Omelets/Fruit Salad/Toast
Friday Snack- Popcorn with Fresh Mozzarella
No comments:
Post a Comment