Tag: Christmas

family

Santa Claus

Andi

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love Santa Claus. And I like him so much for a couple different reasons.

Santa was real! Or at least Saint Nicholas was real. He was a Turkish monk born around 280 A.D. Which was a long time ago! He inherited a fortune from his parents, but decided to give it all away. He became legend for traveling around the world helping those in need. Helping others is not a bad thing to be known for! The tradition of hanging stockings for Santa to fill came from a legend of St. Nicholas as well. Many years ago, when a woman was married, her parents would give a sum of money to the groom. This was called a dowry. If you were poor and your parents unable to afford to give a groom a dowry, there was the possibility you wouldn’t be able to get married or that you would be trapped in poverty. There was a father like this who had 3 daughters. According to legend Saint Nicholas came one night and left each woman a sock full of enough money for a decent dowry assuring they could marry. This may seem like a crazy origin story, but at the time, the dowry was a big deal that had a huge affect on woman. Giving them the money no doubt aided the family tremendously and his unconditional kindness did not go unnoticed.

Santa Claus came to the US in the 1800s with the Dutch who called him Sinter Klaas. They were also the ones who introduced the making sweet goodies for Santa and being good to get presents from him. His story quickly caught on with American families and his popularity soared.

In 1822 Clement Clarke Moore wrote a Christmas poem for his daughters entitled “An Account of a Visit from St Nicholas” in which he described the Jolly Chubby Santa we picture today. It was Thomas Nast, though, who first drew Santa Claus in a red suit and tiny sleigh. Combining these two gave us the image most recognizable as Good Saint Nick. In a very short time the white bearded rosy cheeked jolly old man became the Santa we know and love today.

St Nicholas and later Santa Claus is a man known for joyfully giving. He spends his time helping other people and loves to do so. He does not discriminate because he gives to all the children all over the world. While some parents want to use Santa as a threat to make their kids behave, that’s not what Santa truly is.

The real magic is when you grow out of the childhood wonder and discover a big mystical man doesn’t come down your chimney on Christmas Eve. Because you get to become that magic for someone else. If you are a parent this appears in the sparkle in your children’s eyes. You get to share happiness with the person behind you in the drive thru line by buying their sandwich for them. You get to sit down with a struggling friend and hold them. You get to help the mom juggling her kids and grocery bags by distracting the crying one with silly faces in the checkout line. You can give a gift to the kid who’s parents are frantically working to make ends meet and may not be able to give them a gift.

This Christmas season do something kind for someone you know. Be benevolent to a stranger. Send someone a smile.
What kind of world would we have if everyone tried to be a little bit like Santa?

family

Christmas Eve Box

Andi

This idea floats around every year, and I decided to dive in a give it a try. We already have a Christmas Eve tradition, and this fits in perfectly.

This is a Christmas Eve box. A gift to be opened on Christmas Eve by the kids. It contains Christmas pajamas, popcorn, hot cocoa, a Christmas book, some candy, and The Polar Express.

Pro Tip: I learned the hard way that Christmas PJs are a common tradition and they sell out quickly. Especially if you want matching ones. I’ve gotten pajamas at Walmart, Target, and Carter’s. Good thing about Carter’s is they have decent sales and coupons. But I’ve taken to buying the pajamas before Thanksgiving just to be sure I’d get the ones I wanted.

After it’s opened, we get everyone into their pajamas and read the book. Then we make the popcorn and cocoa. We drag every pillow, stuffed animal and blanket into the livingroom and build a fort. Grab the snacks and turn on the Polar Express.

The kids usually fall asleep in the livingroom, and we carry them to bed and tuck them in.

It’s a warm and cozy tradition, and I love it.

family

Little Christmas Tree

Andi

One of the traditions I’ve started with my family is that everyone gets a new ornament each year. When the kids got big enough, they picked out their own ornaments. It’s an event now. Going out to the store, picking out everyone’s ornament and then going home to put them on the tree.

A couple years ago, an old boss gave me some little trees she’d used for table center pieces. I’m guessing she got them from somewhere like Michael’s.

I kept one for each of us so that the ornaments from Christmases past could be put on them and then placed in the child’s room. So each kid has their own personal tree, filled with their favorite things.

I’m going to need to find bigger trees soon though, as you can see, this one is already full, and this child has only seen 3 Christmases.

This does add a little more expense to the Christmas budget. One way to keep this down is to find the sales. I’ve found that a lot of craft stores put their Christmas stuff on sale fairly early. For example, we got ornaments this year from Joann’s at 60% off. This can usually keep our ornament cost down.

The biggest bonus for me is the fact that my kids love having their own ornaments and personal tree. They run around declaring who’s tree it is. When they grow up, I can give them their ornaments to start their own family Christmas trees with.

Most of all, it brings joy to our home, and that makes it all worth it.

family

Precious Ornaments

Andi

I have these ornaments, and they’ve been on every tree I can remember. They are a pair of figure skaters, and they were made by my Grandma Fern.

Well, she wasn’t really my grandma. She was my dad’s brother’s wife’s mom. So she was my cousins grandma, but not mine. But she lived down the street from my aunt and uncle and we visited every December.

She did a lot of bead crafting. I can remember her craft room with an entire wall of drawers filled with every color bead you can imagine. She gave me several ornaments over the years and I still have most of them. This pair was one of the first.

She had rheumatoid arthritis, and gradually her hands became more and more stiff. Eventually she became unable to handle the small beads. The last ornament she gave me is a little elf that my son now thinks is his.

Her last few years she developed alzheimer’s and she passed this last year. I’d not thought about it until I pulled all these beaded ornaments out of their boxes and it rushed over me. I hadn’t seen her in the final stages, but in a way, I don’t regret that. In my mind, I still see the smiling face cheerfully showing me how to craft. That’s the face I want to hold onto. That’s the face I remember when I hang this skating couple on my tree.

family

Just. Listen.

Andi

It’s coming up on the holidays again, and my annual reminder to pay attention and listen to your kids and get to know who they are. Not who you think they should be or how you want them to be, who they are.

This was always glaringly obvious to me during the holidays. I felt ignored and never felt heard throughout the year, but it was amplified on Christmas morning. Because as I opened gifts, I realized none of them seemed to belong to me. They weren’t things I liked or had interest in. It was like my mom was buying gifts for someone else and accidentally wrote my name on the package. Occasionally, they would be what I’d asked for, but the cheapest knock off version possible. But this wasn’t because I asked for expensive gifts or they had no money.

This was displayed best the year I asked everyone to not buy me anything. I was very interested in photography and I wanted a good camera but couldn’t afford one. So I asked everyone to contribute to my savings for a camera and photoshop. Not buy me a camera, just add to my savings for one. My parents response to this was to not tell any of my siblings what I’d said, buy themselves a new camera and gift me their old one. And then gave me several other gifts I don’t even recall.

Or when I asked for an iHome to go with my fancy iPod touch I’d purchased with my own money, they bought me a set of $15 speakers.

When my brother gave me a bottle of sweet red wine from a local winery because he gathered from conversation what kind of wine I liked, my mother gave me a pair of blowout clearance (she proudly told me later) leopard print shoes, because she didn’t know how much I HATE animal print.

It never is the gift itself per se, it’s the underlying knowledge that she didn’t know enough about my likes and dislikes to know how much I hate animal print. Or that I felt like they didn’t think I was worth spending the extra to buy me an actual iHome, or a solid colored pair of shoes that weren’t as clearanced.

This is definitely layered on top of year round emotion and was not limited to Christmas morning. I didn’t feel heard when I tried to talk about a manager I felt like was out to get me because halfway through I was interrupted to be asked what I did wrong. I didn’t feel emotionally safe to express my feelings any time of year because every time I tried to open up I was attacked. I couldn’t ever voice a complaint because I’d be told how good I had it and my mom had it so much worse. But Christmas seems to just amp up the emotion and magnify the problem like you are an ant burning in a sunbeam.

If you are wanting to give an experience, you should know what your child is into doing, and do it with them. Because the time spent with you is the most precious thing. If you are trying to be creative and save some money, maybe can’t afford the thing they asked for, take notice of the other things they show interest in. Or be honest and explain it’s too expensive and ask what else they’d like, and listen to their ideas. Sometimes money really is the problem. Your kid wants a new video game and you can’t afford to drop $60 on it. I get that struggle, trust me, we’ve been there. Then you really need to know your kid, know their personality, likes, who they are. Listen. You’re children may surprise you with ideas.

Listen to them. Listen all the time. Don’t interrupt them. Don’t belittle their experiences or the feelings they have about them. Don’t ignore the parts of them you’ve decided don’t fit your perfect picture you have painted for their life. In fact, don’t paint that picture.

Just. Listen.

family

Christmas Cards

Andi

It’s a beautiful day! Christmas is coming up fast and I decided this year I wasn’t going to ship gifts and everything had to fit into a regular envelope with a regular stamp.

Sidebar: shipping is expensive!! I spent more on shipping gifts than I spent on the gifts themselves. I could not believe how much the cost of shipping was. End Sidebar.

So, to make things still a little special and unique, I decided to make hand crafted Christmas cards. Luckily, I have a friend that does paper crafting and we set a date to bring all of our supplies together and spend the day making cards.

We crammed the table space we had full of stamps and dyes, scissors and glue. Time went by so quickly as we got sucked into our crafting.

We did accomplish our goal. They are not anywhere close to perfect, but they are still pretty cute. More importantly, we, both mothers, got some time together to enjoy each others company.