Giving Thanks

Traditions are great - but don't get so stuck in doing what "we always do" that you miss out on fun! Eat pie for breakfast instead of saving it until you're stuffed. Eat early so the mess is gone and the turkey coma happens before bedtime. Remember the reason why you celebrate Thanksgiving isn't the food, Christmas isn't the presents, Easter isn't the candy . . . find a way to celebrate the meaningful things and don't let the rest stress you out!

Christmas

This is my all-time favorite holiday. I love the sounds, the smells, the sights and most of all - the family time. Just after we moved to Texas for Daddy to go to Chiropractic school we decided that we needed to reevaluate our celebration of Christmas. It had become so much about the presents and we were missing some of the finer things. We decided Christmas should be simpler - so we whittled down our gift giving. Each child now gets one outfit, one toy, some books and the chance to shop for his/her siblings (at the dollar store), they also get pj's for Christmas Eve. We all share a box of candy and stockings are filled with fruit and a few non-essentials like nail polish, crayons, matchbox cars, etc. On Christmas Eve we tell the Christmas story from Luke 2 and act it out complete with dress-up costumes (nothing fancy, just scarves and things). Christmas morning is family prayer first and THEN presents - one at a time, followed by a glorious breakfast. Each year we paint little village houses and each kid gets to pick their own ornament for the tree. What's magic is all of the free unstructured time when great things happen as a family. I'm sure that a lot of these things will change, but for now - this is what works for us and it's no longer the paper-shredding shop-fest that it used to be.