New Traditions

Growing up, my family and I (Amanda) traveled to Alexandria, LA each year to spend Christmas. We adopted a tradition of letting Santa know that he needed to come a few days early to visit us in Dallas before we packed up the car and headed to LA to see family. So we would read the Christmas story from the bible and then go look at Christmas lights the night before our road trip. While we were gone, Santa would visit! Then we headed to Alexandria where there would eventually be 13 grandchildren (10 of them girls!). We have such fond memories playing together and sleeping like sardines on Memaw and Pawpaw’s living room floor. Now there are 16 great grandchildren (13 of which are girls!). Needless to say, I was super bummed when Hallie woke up with a fever the day before we were supposed to leave and I had to accept that we would not be able to travel to Alexandria this year for Christmas.

 

Instead of sulking all day about not being able to go, Jason inspired me to think positive and establish our own family traditions right here at home with just our little family J Here are four we came up with and we hope to add more in the future years!

 

New tradition #1: Playroom Clean-Up: We decided that since we were about to get plenty of new toys for Christmas, we should go through our playroom and identify every toy we rarely or no longer play with. That way we can save those toys for Caroline or give them away to a family that might need them. We evaluated the “fun-factor” of each toy and let the girls keep only their favorites. Now the playroom is clean, organized, and ready for some new toys!

New tradition #2: Acting out the Nativity: Thanks to my good friend Lindsay, we own a super cute nativity scene and a board book called “The Story of Christmas”. While mommy read the book aloud, the girls moved the figurines around to act out all the parts of the story of Jesus’ birth. It was super easy and a great way for the girls to realize the reason for the season and be a part of it!

 

New tradition #3: Build a Gingerbread House with Daddy the Architect: While mommy took care of Caroline, Hallie and Annabelle built a gingerbread house with daddy. They loved decorating their own parts of the house and taking ownership in them. Then daddy put the house together making sure it was nice and sturdy (and while telling Belle every 5 seconds to stop eating the candy pieces) and then they stood back to admire their work!

 

New tradition #4: Advent Calendar: We started this one on December 1^st. Each night (that we remembered to ;)) we sat around the living room as a family, read something from the daily readings (usually the Psalm) and then went to each person and said aloud what we were thankful for. Next, one girl would take baby Jesus out of one pocket and the other daughter would put him back in the next pocket. (what are we going to do when there are three girls to fight over Jesus!?)