This time of year is a little hard since Jay doesn't get any time off. It makes it so the holidays don't feel much different from the rest of the year, but we try our best to make it special.
Every year I have the desire to focus more on Christ, but I never really know what to do. My oldest sister gave us a wonderful advent calendar that had a little bag for each day of December until the 24th. Inside was a card telling a story about Christ and an ornament to represent that story. It was a wonderful way to be reminded about Christ during the season and also learn more about Him.
In addition to the amazing advent calendar, I found a page in last year's Friend magazine which had a little activity for every day from Dec 11-24 that focused on Christ being a light. We made star shaped cookies one day, used flashlights to find our way in the dark and talked about how Christ helps us like the flashlights help us, read scriptures talking about the Light of Christ, etc. It was a fun and good reminder about what is really important. I tried to really emphasize with Jack how Christmas was more about what Christ gave us and what we can give Him, and not what we were getting or giving. I really liked the activities we did, so I think we'll try it again next year and see how it goes. Even though we've been married 9 years, we're still figuring out traditions that we want to do as a family, and I think we may have found one or two traditions we can continue.
Jay was able to get Christmas Eve off and had Christmas day off. We spent Christmas Eve at the Ice Station in Valencia with the Badureks. We had such a fun time ice skating (well, some of us did. It was pretty hard for the kids. Ha!), but they also had a little skating rink with snow and sleds that you can slide around on and play with. The kids also got hot chocolate and met Frosty the Snowman. I had wanted to go ice skating for Christmas Eve, and this was perfect because it was less expensive that ice skating anywhere else, and we had a few different activities we could do with the kids. I definitely want to go next year if it's available again.
We had ordered scooters for the kids, a Razor two wheeled scooter for Jack and a three wheeled scooter for Claire. They were supposed to come before Christmas, but as I was checking the UPS website to track the package, it showed no information. We contacted UPS and were told that Target sent a shipping label but never sent the package so the package was not even in the UPS system. We panicked. Jack had really wanted Santa to bring a scooter and Jay kind of had his heart set on it. So at 5pm on Christmas Eve, Jay headed to Toys R Us and Target looking for a scooter. He found one at the second store but it was twice as much as we paid. The third store had one for $15 more and we decided to just get it. We didn't want Jay's trip to be in vain since he was spending time away from us (and his family via Skype) for so long. We decided to not worry about a scooter for Claire since she wouldn't really care, and we already had an old scooter she could use.
Jack was pretty thrilled when he woke up and saw his scooter! He even rode it around our place a few times. I think that made the 2 hour trip to the store the night before worth it. Looking back, we should've just told him that we got scooters for them but it didn't come in time, instead of joining the mass amounts of people last minute shopping. But luckily it worked out.
Christmas morning was fun and very enjoyable. We spent the morning just enjoying each other and each present we opened. In the afternoon, we headed to the park to try out a few toys and the scooter, of course!! We had a good day, but hope that next year we'll be able to spend the holidays with family.
Every year I have the desire to focus more on Christ, but I never really know what to do. My oldest sister gave us a wonderful advent calendar that had a little bag for each day of December until the 24th. Inside was a card telling a story about Christ and an ornament to represent that story. It was a wonderful way to be reminded about Christ during the season and also learn more about Him.
In addition to the amazing advent calendar, I found a page in last year's Friend magazine which had a little activity for every day from Dec 11-24 that focused on Christ being a light. We made star shaped cookies one day, used flashlights to find our way in the dark and talked about how Christ helps us like the flashlights help us, read scriptures talking about the Light of Christ, etc. It was a fun and good reminder about what is really important. I tried to really emphasize with Jack how Christmas was more about what Christ gave us and what we can give Him, and not what we were getting or giving. I really liked the activities we did, so I think we'll try it again next year and see how it goes. Even though we've been married 9 years, we're still figuring out traditions that we want to do as a family, and I think we may have found one or two traditions we can continue.
Jack was pretty thrilled when he woke up and saw his scooter! He even rode it around our place a few times. I think that made the 2 hour trip to the store the night before worth it. Looking back, we should've just told him that we got scooters for them but it didn't come in time, instead of joining the mass amounts of people last minute shopping. But luckily it worked out.
 |
| We could not get the kids to be serious, so we all just decided to be silly! Merry Christmas to us! |
Comments