Tag Archives: lights

Boys, Christianity, Family, Parenting

Be Decorating for Christmas

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We started our Christmas decorating today. It was a team effort.
Sexy Neck had the idea of wrapping a picture. He helped me balance the lights in the mantle and tried to figure out a few Christmas carols on the piano by ear. (How does he do that?)
JC helped with the garland, bows and lights.
CC helped with the advent calendar.
OC picked out the Christmas books.

All the boys drew Christmas pictures and put the wise men downstairs to start their journey to our nativity scene in Bethlehem our kitchen. The shepherd is on the upper shelf because he was on the hills above Bethlehem when the angels visited him. (At least that’s what the boys told me.)

Welcome to our home:

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I love Christmas! It gets more and more interesting and exciting as our traditions evolve.

Our traditions:
We have our gingerbread dough in the fridge ready to make men. My mom started decorating gingerbread men when JC was wee!

We have an advent calendar that the boys get a small ornament and chocolate each of the twenty-four days before Christmas.

We have a nativity scene where baby Jesus arrives on Christmas Day and the three kings/wisemen arrive in January.

We decorate with lots of lights to take away the winter darkness.

We hang our stockings. This is the first year we have a fireplace mantle to hang them on. We actually have a two-sided fireplace so we had to have a discussion on where they should go. My mom made the stockings.

Do you have any traditions to share?

May you enjoy a restful, peaceful and beautiful advent/Christmas season.

Self-help

Be Nostalgic Not Stupid

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Merry Christmas Everyone! To my new and old friends, and to my family (given and chosen).

Here is my Christmas life lesson for you!

I tend to get emotionally attached to things. In my daily life, I have to make a conscious effort to let “things” go. This include mostly physical things that have been given to me and words that have been said to me.

I was reminded of the importance of letting go on Christmas Eve.

Here is a photo of our awesome Christmas tree picked out together as a family from a local Christmas tree farm. Our eldest son just put the angel on top of the tree.

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Here is the tree after my husband unplugged it on Christmas Eve. The plug sparked and the lights went dark.

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Now here is the background information that I need to share: I have vehemently refused to buy new lights for our tree because these are the exact same lights that were on my tree as a child. My parents have a beautiful artificial tree with lights and I wanted their old lights! We have been using these lights for about ten years and my parents had them for over twenty years… So you can imagine…

Now I need to have a little talk with myself: Seriously, Joanna, don’t be stupid. Give up the lights!

Now comes the hard work because I am trying to figure out what else I am holding onto that could potentially burn down my house!