Tradition

I have thought a lot lately about tradition in our family. I guess that is what the holiday season brings out in me. Tim and I have had lots of discussions about our Christmas traditions. This year we are keeping a lot of the favorites and throwing in some new ones as well. As Tim and I have talked about our own childhood memories of the holidays, we have both concluded that we don't remember things or presents. What we remember are the people in our lives and the memories we created with them. We are making extra efforts this Christams season to bring this spirit into our home.

Here are a few of the new and old traditions we are doing this year.

First, a new one, is our countdown to Christmas by reading a Christmas themed book every night. I got this idea several months ago somewhere in the blogging world. I went through all of our books and pulled out all the Christmas ones and have been picking up additional Christmas books here and there over the past two months. I ended up with 24 of them and wrapped them all up individually and put them in a basket. Every night one of the kids get to open a book. They all have tags that correspond with how many more days there are until Christmas. Last night, it was Hog's turn to open the book (since it was his birthday!) and he wanted to read it to all of us. I marvelled at how well he reads and loved spending those few moments cuddled up with my kids.

Last year, I got the idea from Flylady to make a gingerbread house out of Halloween candy. So, for the second year in a row, we made a gingerbread house three days after Halloween and got rid of all the Halloween candy. My husband now thinks I am a genius because I got our kids to cheerfully give up all their Halloween candy. We had a blast sorting all of the candy and then decorating for the first FHE of November. We even played Christmas music to get us in the mood. The greatest part is that I made the house out of cardboard and duct tape ahead of time so there was no worries of it falling apart. The "glue" frosting worked awesome for putting candy on. We even made a snowman out of donuts left over from a soccer game, but, sadly, the snowman disappeared. I can't figure out what happened to it, but I think Snausage knows.

One year when I was about eight, I got an idea from the Children's Friend (remember when it was called that) to make a teddy bear out of scraps of material. My brother Dusty, was three and I decided to make the bear for him as a Christmas gift. I can still remember rummaging through my mom's fabric on the day after Thanksgiving to find pieces for my bear. I sewed it all by hand, stuffed it with more fabric and completed the project with a button face. I don't remember very many of the gifts I gave when I was a kid but I have never forgotten this one. Some how, I ended up with the bear and I still have it. Dusty was just here for Thanksgiving and we reminisced about this gift. The body and face are made out of red, white and blue fabric with elephants. We both remembered having pants made by my mom out of this fabric. The back of the bear was made from left overs of an orange polyester suit my mom made for herself. Several years later when Dusty was about eight, he made me a homemade gift. He cut off the bottom of a pair of sweats, got out the sewing machine and made me a hair scrunchy. It was very crudely put together and was not very pretty but, even though I was a picky teenager, I treasured this hair scrunchy and wore it for years because my brother's time, effort and thought meant so much to me. I can even remember wearing the scrunchy on my mission while doing a service project. I am not sure what happened to it, but the memory of this gift is one I treasure.

So, thinking about the significance of these homemade gifts in my childhood prompted me to help my kids have this same experience. A few weeks ago they drew names for Christmas and each of them is going to give a handmade gift to their sibling. They have all told me their ideas and I am really amazed at what they have come up with. (After Christmas, I will share how it all came out.)

Here's to a Christmas season filled with traditions that bring out the true meaning of this holiday.