Of Late

In December, we celebrated two birthdays in our house.  For Jon's, I made Snickers Cupcakes.  They were pretty much the most amazing cupcakes I've ever made.  Everything was made from scratch (well, that is, except for the Snickers bars), and I added a pinch of coarse salt on top for that salty sweet combo.  Yep.  They were awesome.

We also celebrated Christmas.  Here are a few little shots from Christmas Eve.

 The girls got to open one present...

which was matching owl pajamas! (Kappas in the making?)

And now that we're home, we're plugging away at some projects around the house.  I have submitted one grant and am working on another one (which is taking FOREVER).  And Jon has finally finished a project he started in August:

Isn't it great?  The picture doesn't show it well, but the color is cranberry.  Now we can finally unpack the dishes we inherited that have been sitting in boxes since my parents delivered them in May.  We have also finished tiling the backsplash in the kitchen...now we just need to grout it, and I think our kitchen will finally be done!  With those things out of the way, we are dreaming of other projects...like building a dining room table, shelving units in the basement for storage, dry walling a room in the basement...things like that.  And I'm thinking of goals and projects for 2012: putting together a reading list, making a cleaning schedule, and trying to decide if I should train for a triathlon.  

Advent: Days 10-11

Day 10: Go on a sleigh ride.
This is another reason why I love our neighborhood.  At Christmas time they have a community Christmas party/potluck, complete with sleigh rides through the neighborhood.  We weren't organized enough (extraverted enough?) to go to the potluck, so we just went on the sleigh ride.  Laurel thought it was pretty much amazing.  My personal goal for next year is to know enough of our neighbors that we will feel comfortable going to the potluck portion (I know, I know, that's how we meet our neighbors by going to these things).  I also think that the sleigh ride will become one of our Christmas traditions as long as we live in this neighborhood.

Day 11: Bake cookies with mom.
I got most of the cookie dough ready while Laurel was napping.  She was pretty excited to put on her apron and help.  As per my usual m.o. we were crunched for time, so we had to end our project before I could make icing and let her decorate them.  Maybe that will happen this afternoon.  Maybe.  Maybe not. I was hoping for some really amazing cookies in my life this year...so far I think they're only so/so.  And I now have lots of only so/so dough left in my fridge.

Advent: Days 3-9

Our Advent adventures have continued.  Here's a quick recap:

Day 3: Put up the tree and put the lights on.
Day 4: Decorate the tree.

Day 5: Make a Christmas card for Grammie.

Day 6: St. Nicholas Day!  Open stockings!

Day 7: Open and read a new Christmas book.  (We opened "A Star for Christmas")

Day 8: Make a paper snowflake.  (note for future years: practice first...it's been a while).

Day 9: Mail Christmas cards.  (Laurel and I walked to the post office, and she got to put all of the cards through the mail slot, which she thought was pretty great.)

Day Two: Make Cards for the Cousins

My sister-in-law started a tradition where the cousins all make Christmas cards for each other.

Making Christmas cards with a two year old is a fun (interesting?) adventure.  She definitely had fun using the glue and the stamps.  When we asked Laurel what message she wanted us to write to her cousins, she spouted off random phrases.  I would share them here, but I don't want to ruin it for the recipients of the cards.  I hope that, even though we live miles away from the Boston cousins, our kids will grow up knowing their cousins and having lots of fun when they are together.

Advent Calendar: Day One

Yesterday we did the first activity on our Advent Calendar: Set up the Nativity Scene.

Our Nativity Scene was a wedding gift from our friends, the Claders.  It was made in Mexico (a place where I went a few times with the Claders, and also where Jon and I spent our honeymoon), and depicts the characters in the Nativity Story from that perspective.  The shepherds carry sheep as well as chickens. Everyone's clothes are brightly colored.  And there is no white baby Jesus.  I love it--I think it brings a tiny bit of the world into our living room.

Last night we brought up from the basement the shoebox that it lives in 11 months out of the year.  Jon sat at the table with the box, and handed a figure, wrapped in newspaper, to Laurel.  She then ran to me, in the living room, to unwrap it and help it find its home on our bookshelf.  Back and forth she ran, excited to see what was hidden in each new little bundle of newspaper.  As we put them out, we started to name them: This is Mary, she is Jesus' mom.  This is a shepherd, he takes care of sheep (and chickens).

I was surprised how much Laurel liked this activity.  It was a good reminder that simple things, small things, can become significant things when done with intentionality and in relationship.

Advent Ideas

Believe it or not, I did actually get some good responses and ideas after my last post...it's just that most of them came in the form of emails and conversations (not in the comments section of the blog).

I love what one of my friends does: Starting on Boxing Day her son is given a clue at breakfast each morning to find the wise men as they make their way to the nativity scene.  They are hiding somewhere in the house, and often happen to have a gold (chocolate) coin with them.  On Epiphany they arrive at the nativity scene and the family celebrates by giving their Christmas gifts to each other.

As Jon and I have discussed our ideas, here is what we've come up with so far...
I think we're going to do our stockings on St. Nicholas' Day.  Because we will often be traveling and in someone else's home for Christmas, this is one thing that we can do in our own space, with just our own little family.

I also came across the idea of giving three gifts, like the Magi did.  This year we'll do something to wear (p.j.s on Christmas Eve), something to read, and something to play with.  I think this will help us keep the gift buying/giving under control and allow us to be reminded that Christmas isn't about the material stuff we get.

We talked about also trying to give something that we've created that expresses our love for the other person...perhaps a poem or a song or a piece of art.  We haven't given this the complete thumbs up yet, but I think it would be neat for our girls over the years to experience something like this.

I made an Advent calendar (pictures below).  Clipped to each clothes pin is an activity for us to do that day.  Some are simple crafts (make a paper snowflake), some are experiences (go to Candy Cane Lane to look at the Christmas lights), some are opportunities for us to love our neighbors (pick out a gift from the World Vision Catalogue, take cookies to someone in the neighborhood), and some help us tell the Story of Christmas to the girls (set up the Nativity Scene, go outside and look at the stars and talk about the Wise Men).  I expect the activities will change as the girls get older.

We're also doing devotions together each night.  We're using the Regent College Advent Reader.  Laurel isn't quite ready to sit through a reading like that yet, so I think we might do it after the girls are in bed.  But we'll hopefully find other ways to tell the Story to her in the coming weeks.

To be honest, the real reason I wanted to write this post was to show you this:

Christmas Traditions

I love the season of Advent. I love that we have space to prepare to celebrate Jesus' birth.  I love the quiet space in worship, the candles, the familiar scripture passages that proclaim that in the darkness a light will shine, out of a stump, a shoot will grow.  And I love the cookies and the music and the decorations.

But somehow, Advent seems to get away from me every year.  One minute I'm handing out Halloween candy and the next I'm realizing that it's too late to decorate for Christmas because Christmas is only two days away.  What is meant to be a season of waiting quickly becomes a season of rushing.

I want my girls to grow up with a sense of the rhythm that Advent offers, a sense of waiting, hoping, anticipating.  A sense of light glowing brighter, even as our days grow darker.  A sense of turning our attention away from ourselves and towards God and others.

I've been trying to figure out how to cultivate those things in our family; how to create some family Advent traditions that will slow us down and shift our focus.

I've seen some great Advent calendars to make where each day the kids pull out a card that has an activity for that day written on it.  Most of the activity ideas I've seen are the opposite of where I'd like to go, though.  I am on a mission in the next few weeks to try to come up with a list of activities that will be both fun and meaningful, outward focused and age appropriate.  If you have ideas, please send them my way.

I'd also love to hear your ideas for other family traditions during Advent.  Do you have an Advent wreath and light candles? Do you drive around and look at Christmas lights?   Do you have ways of teaching your kids about generosity rather than consumerism?

The other conundrum I'm facing is the whole Santa/St. Nick thing.  Jon grew up in a family that didn't really do Santa Claus.  I grew up in one that did.  We've talked about the values and drawbacks of both approaches.  Some of you are probably thinking, "How could you ever be so cruel as to consider NOT doing Santa?"  And others might be thinking, "Of course you shouldn't do Santa--it misses the whole point of Christmas."  To both of those responses, I would say: "Yes.  I know."  I don't want to go into all of the reasons on either side of the issue--they all have validity.  (Perhaps one of the biggest for us is wondering if we're comfortable creating a false reality for our kids.)  The real question I have is: how do we create meaningful and fun Christmas traditions for our family that keep our focus on the true meaning of Christmas?  What have you done in your family that you have loved?

And if we don't do Santa, how do we help our kids not ruin it for others (like their classmates or their cousins)?

I welcome your ideas (but not your judgments on whether or not Santa is good or bad).