Christmas is the one time of year that we truly whip out some major decorations in this little lazy house and throw them all over the place. None of the other holidays we celebrate get as much recognition in our house.
I didn't purposely make it that way, it just kind of happened. Maybe for a couple of reasons:
1. I don't like to decorate. In general.
2. I'm not good at decorating. In general.
3. I'm not big on many holidays. In general.
Because of our over-the-top Christmas decorating (in contrast to how little we decorate for, or even celebrate, other holidays), I often walk past some of the decorations we have out at Christmas time and think to myself, "I just LOVE that," or "Gosh, I forgot how cute that is."
Like when I see this...
...it brings me, ummmm, what's the word... happiness? No, no. That's not it. Uh... excitement? No, that's not it either. Gosh, it's on the tip of my tongue. I just can't think of it.
JOY!
That's it. When I walk past these cute dishes in my kitchen it brings me joy.
And when I see these...
...just sitting on my steps all cute like, it makes me smile.
Oo! Oo! And this picture...
...gives me all kinds of warm family fuzzies.
It's our Christmas pajama picture that we take every Christmas Eve. We have this tradition, you see. We give the kids new Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve and Lazy Dad and I give each other some. Then we all go run change into them and take a picture in front of the tree.
I get our new Christmas pajama picture printed every year and add it to the frame before I put it away with the decorations. That way the next year it's all ready to go! (Aren't I just SO ahead of the game?) (For that one thing.)
I also have been keeping my kids' Christmas pajamas since their first Christmas with the hopes that one day I'll sew them into a Christmas quilt for each of them.
DON'T LAUGH. I just heard someone laugh.
I really do want to try... as best as I can... I am completely optimistic... and pray every year to Jesus... that I will actually make that happen one day. I'm hopeful!
Moving on.
Here's another Christmas decoration I love walking by in my house...
...bells. I love bells this time of year. I'm not sure why, but I just DOOOOOO, okay? I like hearing them jingle when we open doors in our house. It's just so festive!
Oh! And this...
...it's our countdown to Christmas thingy. I scored it at a garage sale when the kids were little. They take turns getting the numbered stars out of Jesus' manger and hang them up each day in December.
And how can you NOT love the sight of this...
...the Christmas tree. All lit up, all decorated with meaningful things to us.
You see, I have this strange thing about the Christmas tree. I explained it on my radio show recently.
Basically when we started having children I knew that one day they'd ask me why we put a Christmas tree up this time of year. And you see, I have to have a reason why we do things. And you see, they can't just be some stupid reason, it's got to be a real meaningful reason. Cause you see, I like things that are meaningful. Otherwise, what's the point? (This is also why I don't like celebrating other holidays, that shall remain nameless, that aren't meaningful to me. I LIKE MEANING PEOPLE!)
Anyway, everything about our Christmas tree has a meaningful reason to me. The tree representing many things to us, each color representing something meaningful, the striped ribbons, the twinkling lights, the star on top. All of which I could go into, but I'm not preaching this Sunday, Lazy Dad is, so I'll spare you.
But one of the things I love the most about our tree is the red ornaments that we first bought when we were in the throws of having children and had very little money to splurge on Christmas decorations. All we could get was cheap red balls. And even though the color had meaning to me, I wanted to make them MORE meaningful. So I bought a cheap gold paint pen, looked up every reason the Bible says Jesus came, and wrote them on the ornaments.
So every time we decorate our tree we read these reasons out, and every time we walk past the tree, we are reminded of why Jesus came. Every reason.
I love it.
Another new thing I added this year is this verse (from Uppercase Living) on our front window. I wuv it too. It makes me happy.
And so wow. All of THIS got me to thinking... I wonder if you feel the same way to about your Christmas decorations?
Do you walk past them and think, Oo, I just love that decoration, it's just so festive!
Or maybe you get warm fuzzies when you look at something you put up every. single. year.
Or... or maybe you've got something really meaningful you'd like to share with us about your Christmas decor or even a tradition that you do in your family!
So.
Today on The Lazy Mom Radio Show I'll be talking about Christmas traditions. I'd love to hear yours!
I'd also love to see your favorite decorations in your house! Basically I want to be all nosey and see what warms your heart this Christmas season!
Here's some ways you can participate:
- You can either write a blog post about it and leave a link to it in the comments below.
- You can upload a picture to my Lazy Mom Facebook page.
- You can tweet it to me on Twitter.
- You can call into the show today and tell me all about it! (Here's how!)
I will one day take picture of all my ornaments and stuff, but until then: I LOVE your nativity countdown thingy!! And, I too am keeping some of my kids favorite baby clothes to make quilts of. However, I have said that they will be finished by the time each child has their first kid. Considering my oldest is 6, this should be doable :)
ReplyDeleteMy favorite Christmas decoration/tradition in our house is the Advent stockings: http://bringingboryahome.blogspot.com/2011/11/tip-for-tuesday.html
ReplyDeleteTuesday, November 29, 2011
A Tip For Tuesday - Advent Stockings
A number of years ago I came across an idea somewhere (Family Fun, maybe?) of a fun way to count down the days till Christmas.
We had done the advent chains, where you start with 24 paper chains and you rip one off each day so the kids (the little ones, especially) can see how many days are left till the big day. Some people write a bible verse on each chain, or an idea of an activity to do, some just leave them blank.
We also do advent calendars, as this is something I remember from my childhood. Somehow, my kids seem to get just as much thrill out of something as simple as looking for the daily number and opening the flap as I did when I was little.
But my favorite Christmas countdown, and it seems to be my kids' favorite as well, is our advent stockings.
I'm still planning on throwing a length of Christmas greenery along the hooks to dress it up a bit, but you get the idea.
Pretty simple to do, and the kids get soooo excited to find out what's in each stocking.
I just went out and bought 12 pairs of red and white socks from Wal-Mart, but you could do this for free just by using socks from your unmatched socks basket.
What? Doesn't everybody have a basket full of scores of unmatched socks???
Find some wallspace where you can hang this. I happen to have a long mirror with hooks on it that I use, but you can get some of those 3M hooks that come off the wall when you're done. Those things are all kids of awesome.
Run a string through the holes of 24 clothespins, and mark the clothespins from 24 down to 1, with 24 to the left and 1 all the way at the end on the right.
Then have some fun figuring out what to fill the stockings with. If you haven't figured it out yet, this works just like an old-fashioned advent calendar: on Dec 1st, your kids get to see what's in the stocking hung by the "24" clothespin. Dec 2nd they open the "23" stocking and so on down the line till they've opened the "1" stocking on Christmas Eve.
The beauty of this is that you can go really cheap or really elaborate, whatever floats your boat (and your budget).
A few ideas along the range of free to pricey:
*print out some Christmas activity pages, such as word-searches, crosswords, coloring pages,
*cut out strips of red and green construction paper and put those in the stocking for the kids to make a Christmas chain,
*cut out a little Christmas tree from green paper and write "Today we find (or decorate) our Christmas tree!",
*put a Christmas cookie cutter in the stocking to let them know today's the day they'll get to help make Christmas cookies,
*put a little baggie of birdseed in the stocking with a note that instructs them how to make peanut-butter-and-birdseed-pinecone-feeders for the birds,
*candy canes,
*Christmas pencils,
*gum,
*Christmassy hair accessories,
*jingle bells and some ribbon for the kids to make necklaces with,
*surprise them with breakfast out on the way to school one day (perhaps you could write it out on a star cut-out),
*cute Christmas socks.
You're only limited by your imagination.
Each day, another sock comes down, so they'll have the visual before them of how many days remain till Christmas.
If you can't trust the kids to not peek (and really, if you can, I don't like you very much), then just fill one at a time before you go on to bed each night.
The kids have been asking me for weeks when we can start the advent stockings.
Maybe I'll need to make advent stockings leading up to the advent stockings.
Kidding....
I love garland. I just love the look of garland draped down a stair case bannister, or hung around a doorway, or a fireplace mantle. Anywhere, really. It makes me feel Christmassy. I spent what my husband considers a fortune on garland at Costco this year for our stair bannister but it is my favorite decoration. Love the quote in the window idea btw.
ReplyDeleteI love family Christmas cards - pictures, etc. and I love nativity sets, nice ones that are beautiful and reverent to always bring to mind the true meaning of Christmas - and I love the lights! I have always liked sitting in the living room with just the beautiful Christmas lights on and enjoying the feeling!
ReplyDelete