Decorating for the Holidays

We were up late for our family Thanksgiving on a Saturday, so the next morning, we had a very difficult time getting going for church.  It is VERY unlike us to miss church for anything other than sickness.  But we stayed home and in our jammies most of the day.

The kids jumped into bed with us in the morning.  They started out between us until Phil got out of bed, walked around to my side and then climbed back in next to me!  With that, I was able to get a cute shot of the kids cuddled together on Daddy’s side.

We decided to make the most of the day and get out the Christmas stuff for the house.  Now that we had 2 official Thanksgiving dinners under our belt (literally!), the Christmas season could begin!

This was the first year that Keith could help decorate.  Last year he was still too young to have interest.  But this year was a different story! 

We got the ornaments on the tree, our stockings hung by the fireplace, our new advents calendar put up (more on that), and our nativity sets up and displayed.  Now that the kids are really getting older, we are making stronger efforts to explain the purpose of Christmas.

 

 

We are starting 2 new traditions this year…

 

 

The first is the advent “calendar”.  We have never done that before because I was always deterred by the distribution of candy for the count down to Christmas.  It never made sense to me!  But by a word from my friend Heidi, we found this cool Advent Village.  It is something reused every year.  It has three buildings, all with windows, doors, chimneys, trees and the like that open with doors.  They are all numbers (of course), but nothing inside…

This allows us to put whatever we want in each little door.  With that, we found a website that had a list of 25 items & scripture verses to coordinate with them.  These items vary from a piece of candy, to a lock of wool, to salt, to tiny bells, to birthday candles, etc.  Each item has a corresponding scripture verse that explains about that item and how it correlates to Jesus and the holiday.    The kids are LOVING it!

The 2nd new tradition is one that our friend, The Hutchisons, are passing on to us.  They gifted us this wonderful package at Thanksgiving filled with “The Elf on the Shelf” book & doll.  They found it at Nordstroms, but I am sure you can find it elsewhere.  It is a story of our family elf, and how he came to be.  He sits in a spot in the house and watches the day.  At night he disappears, flying back to the North Pole to give a full report to Santa about what happened in our house that day (good & bad).  Then, in the morning, we find him in a different spot each day as he returns.  The kids are loving this as well!  One of the first things they do each morning is run out into the living room and look for the elf!  And Chloe kindly reminds Keith whenever he does something that is naughty (or that SHE doesn’t like), “Oop, Keith, the elf saw that!”