(If you click on the event, it will take you to the rest of the pictures from that event.  If you’re really a glutton for punishment or just want photo-overload, you can head to the Photos page for the complete Christmas week set.)

Annual trip to see one of the only fire station train gardens around…

Christmas in Connecticut…

Old Sturbridge Village…

Wolf Pack hockey game…

Here’s the photographic remembrance of Ty’s first Grinch Reading.

Not-Me-Monday is a blog carnival started by MckMama. Hop over to her blog to see what others have NOT done this week.

I was NOT hell bent on the kids wearing their matching snowman pajamas for Christmas Eve evening and Christmas morning pictures since Ty didn’t come home in time to wear them last year.  PJ has NOT grown multiple inches (and gained some weight) since Nana bought them last year.  It was NOT borderline inappropriate to have him walking around in his much-too-small pajamas.

I did NOT keep my children up until after 10:30PM on Christmas Eve and then document the meltdown that resulted.

I did NOT save all of my wrapping until Christmas Eve.  I did NOT forget to wrap the gift from Mia to Nana that we slaved over.  I would NEVER forget something so meaningful.  NOT ME!

I would NOT buy our gift to our daughter while she was standing there and tell her it was for another little girl.

Patrick and I are NOT be more excited about PJ’s Erector Set than he is.

Gear 

Phase One: The sawing

Phase Two: The dragging 

  Phase Three: The securing

Phase Four: The standing 

 Phase Five: The de-icing

Phase Six: The lighting 

Phase Seven: The decorating 

Project Completion! 

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Original post follows…

My kids: Mom, why don’t we decorate like that? (Pointing to a beautifully lighted house complete with candles in the windows, wreaths on the doors, and an inflatable Santa rocking on horse…yes, it was actually rocking back and forth.)

Mom:  Kids, we can barely manage to keep up with laundry let alone clean the bathroom, vacuum, and dust.  When in the world do you think we would hang Christmas lights?  Additionally, all of the decorations need to be stored the other 11 months of the year.  Where do you suppose we do that?

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One of my kids: Mom, when are we going to start getting ready for Christmas?  Nana and Pops (who live in an apartment connected to our house AND hung Christmas light on their porch while we were away for Thanksgiving) are getting ready.  Why aren’t we?

Mom:  What do you call that Christmas prayer chain hanging on our chandelier?  Besides, we’re getting our tree this weekend, does that count?

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It’s not that I want to be a Scrooge or a Grinch.  I’m actually as big of a fan of Christmas lights as the next person.  But overall I feel the need to push back against our culture that is out to make as much money as possible off of us this holiday shopping season and convince my children that they are entitled to a truckload of toys and gifts that will sit relatively untouched in my basement until we deem them old and discarded enough to give away.  I think the baby Jesus would be cringing in his manger to know that the celebration of his birth has become not about his birth at all.  This season we’re trying (‘trying’ being the keyword) to let our children be excited and enjoy the season but also instill in them that it is, in fact, better to give than receive as we celebrate the birth of the Ultimate Giver. 

I love this song by Matthew West and Amy Grant that describes how I wish Christmas would always be treated.

I’d love to know how you’re preparing (or not preparing) for Christmas this year.  Join the discussion in our BlogFrog community on the right hand side.

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P.S. Let me know that it’s snowing for the first time of the season as I write this.

Every year since PJ was 3, we’ve created an old-fashioned, red and green, Christmas-countdown-chain.  Actually, it’s an old-fashioned, red and green, Christmas-countdown-prayer-chain.  On every link we list friends and family in our life.  Every night, the kids take down a link and we pray for the named person during our family prayer time.  We’re so blessed to be surrounded by so many awesome people that we’ve started grouping them (i.e., MOPS friends, school friends, etc) instead of listing individual names.  Even with the grouping method, we may have to start earlier than December 1st next year.

P.S.  The educator in me also has to mention this a great preschool project because it only requires cutting straight lines.  Scissoring (is that a word?) is a kindergarten readiness skill for the obvious reason and for the not-so-obvious reason that it strengthens the pincer muscle that is necessary for good pencil grip.  Assembling the chain (red, green, red, green) is also a pre-math skill–patterning. 

Happy Countdown!

I think my biggest gift giving quirk is that I love giving homemade or useful gifts.  I’m not such a big fan of giving just to give.

This is the third year that the kids and I have undergone a homemade gift giving project to use for neighbor, friend, extended family, and teacher gifts.

Two years ago, we made soup jars.  It was a simple recipe with dried onion, beef boullion, and some other seasonings in a jar with layered, tri-color pasta.  Since you can only seem to buy tri-color pasta all mixed up, we turned it into a preschool sorting project so we could have the colors layered in our jars.  I can’t seem to find the actual recipe, but you can Swagbuck or Google “soup jar recipes” and find a recipe you like.  When we gifted ours, we included the can of tomatoes the recipe called for so all the receiver had to add was water.

Last year, we made chili seasoning and gave it away in cute, Christmas-themed, Chinese-takeout-type containers.  We were able to get inexpensive spices at Sam’s Club and BulkFood.com.

This year…well you’ll just have to wait and see since some of you will be gleeful recipients of this year’s project

I’d love to know how you keep your Christmas homemade.  What are you making this year (or have you made in past years)?