what December looks like for us (part 3)

Traditions

The Christmas I was pregnant with Nathan, Matt

and I talked a lot about what we wanted Christmas

to look like for us and our children.  We decided

to carry on one tradition from each family but 

then to create our own. 

Matt's mom gave Matt and his brother a new ornament

each year while growing up ... 

and we do the same for Nathan and Grace.

My mom would always bake Christmas cookies

(including this Slovakian recipe that was passed

down for generations) with her mom ...

then I joined in ... Gramma is in heaven now ...

but Grace helping us has brought our baking

time back to three generations.

Things That Did Not Get Done

And there is always something I'd hoped to do with or for my 

family that just didn't get done ... this Gingerbread Nativity

didn't get done this year!

Music - Decorating - and more!

I love Christmas music but we don't start playing it until after Thanksgiving weekend.

We put up an artificial tree each year (Matt is allergic to live trees) and I've

started letting the kids put the ornaments on wherever they like.

Other simple decorations are displayed around our home.

I like to take down Christmas decor soon after the new year.

No outside lights or decorations because we live in the middle of the country

so only our Amish neighbors would enjoy the lights! 

We have a set of Christmas snowman dishes that used to only get used

on Christmas day ... now we use them all of December!

The last two years, I've watched a few Christmas classic movies.... 

White Christmas, Christmas Carol,

It's a Wonderful Life ...

And if we had cable, I'm pretty sure I'd be sucked in by those

Hallmark Christmas movies ... 

This year, we gave family special gifts we bought for them in Peru.

But our tradition is to give homemade gifts because we

feel like homemade gifts give more of ourselves!

I used to enjoy picking out wrapping items to all coordinate etc ...

the last two years, I've worked on using up all my leftovers from years past.

This year, I used newsprint paper 

(we got a big roll from the newspaper office to use for school)...

stamped the recipient's name on the paper with my rubber stamps...

wrapped the gift and finished it off by tying a strip of scrap material around gift.

I thought the gifts looked cute and I was able to use the money

saved on gifts instead of wrapping stuff.

I received a few positive comments and only one negative one.

Simple! That describes our life ... holidays and every day.