I'm personally taking some time to do so now. (Most of you would have already heard/experienced some of our celebrating by now anyways....here goes...)
This Christmas rolled by faster than I was prepared for, but all the important things got done.
Some things that kept us busy include:
- sledding on the warmer days
- trying our hand (or feet and skill) at skiing. (We think that this will be our new family winter activity; we survived one day anyways. Megan was able to take a lesson, Evan was too young. It was a struggle to help him, when neither Spencer or I have been skiing in years. Our best success came from having him take off his skis and walking a little way up the hill then helping him back into them and sending him down hill. He loved that. But kept asking if he could take the tow rope to the top of the bunny hill and when he would be able to use a snowboard. Yikes! One ski day at a time. He'll get there eventually and so will Megs.)
- watching despicable me at the cheap theater while eating a large popcorn! The kids finally all stayed fairly interested and in their seats for the whole movie! (actually I told Evan that if he didn't; as he typically likes to scale the seats, visit the arcade and washroom etc. during the movie; that I would no longer take him to the theatre to watch movies) It worked!
- Went swimming at a wave pool, and played at a real indoor park
- Of course the usual errands and grocery shopping (nightmare with 3 kids in tow!)
- Forever cleaning the house together
- Decorating cookies with grandma.
- Pushing and shoving our way through various stores to find the "perfect" gifts for others
- Attending Spencer's work Christmas party (looking fabulous in purple)
- going to our Ward Party
- Watching Megan's school Christmas party
- sending/receiving Christmas cards
- I did no Christmas baking, but opted to buy a few treats (time and stress savor)
Now for a more spiritual side of activities:
- Listening to Christmas music
- Decorating the tree together
- Spending time with family
- Not rushing too much through out the day
- Selecting a few people in our ward to drop of a stocking of goodies too to help brighten their Christmas ( one carol was sung!; Megan joined us in delivering these stocking, while the boys fell asleep in the van due to the long ride and wait. BTW we were wearing elf hats/Santa hats)
- Having one Christmas dinner with good friends and another after Christmas with family.
- Having our own version of Christmas Eve festivities, we each shared a talent and watched a Christmas video from the church website.
- Attended a live Nativity (PS. it was the coldest night that week to be outside but we were bundled and ready, then the kids enjoyed their dinner at Rotten Ronnies)
- Christmas morning brunch and relaxing with new gifts and spending the day together
Of all our favorite Christmas traditions that we have done my favorite are:
- writing letters to each member in our family that we read aloud Christmas morning (part of our stockings)
- doing a food hamper/stocking with gifts for those in need in our ward
both of these things help us to more focus on the real meaning of the season and include a way to show love and service to others, just as Christ would do.
There are typically other things that we do that didn't happen this year....like taking a night to drive a look at lights, or attending the tree lighting downtown and going to the legislature. We had a more relaxed and slow Christmas which turned out to be perfect. Maybe next year we will find time to include all these other things, but for now we are happy with how our Christmas turned out.
