Christmas Traditions

One thing that is very important to me is that our family have Christmas traditions. We have several traditions that our kids love and look forward to every year. Every year we use my grandma's recipes and make homemade pancakes and syrup for breakfast. For dinner, we have several family favorite dishes. I make ribeye steaks with a special sauce, creamy corn (the kids favorite) and broccoli and rice casserole (Brad's favorite). 

This year, before we ate, I gave each of the short people a piece of paper that had the name of one of the characters from the Christmas story written on it. Each one told what they knew about that character and why they were important to the story. We then let each one lead us in a Christmas carol (except for Camden, who chose to lead us in Thomas and His Friends theme song....we just went with it.)

We also make a cornflake wreath every year. My Granny Pool always made one for me and my grandpa, so we continue that tradition as well. 

We use these dishes on special occasions. When we lost everything in the house fire after we got married, we lost all the dishes we had received that we registered for. 

Shortly after the fire, the set was discontinued and I found them clearanced. I bought all the store had and each time we use them, we are reminded of God's faithfulness to us.
We now have more family members than plates! As we ate dinner on them, our hearts were full because God has blessed us above what we can contain. 
We are so thankful this year as we have truly seen the verse, His promise to us after the fire, come to pass. 
Psalm 66:12 "We went through fire and water, but You brought us to a place of great abundance."

We have our Christmas bear that we have had since before Taylor was born. He has survived 10 years of short people, but somehow this year, one of the kids has caused him to start leaning.....

The short people also LOVE our Christmas scavenger hunt that we do every year. I make the clues and they end up at the Christmas tree for their stockings and presents. 

The clues usually relate to the Christmas story in Luke 2. This year, I had a clue for each child that related the Christmas story to something they liked or were interested in. For example, Carson loves to drink milk so his clue talked about something the baby Jesus would drink that Carson likes too. I mix it up every year, so they are not sure exactly what the clues will be or how it will relate to Jesus being born, but they know it will be fun!

However, our favorite tradition is one that we have done the last 2-3 years. We adopt families in our community who are not able to afford Christmas gifts and deliver them to them on Christmas Eve. It is so important that we keep our focus on giving to others and not just on what we are receiving. We include our kids in this every year and they help us deliver the gifts. I am hopeful that this will open doors to our community to be a greater impact throughout the year and not just during the Christmas season.

This year, our church adopted 12 families. Several of them were larger families with 3-8 kids. We love being able to serve our community in this way. 

Merry Christmas 2015!