Christmas Traditions In Our Home

A quick note to my bloggy peeps: Things have been chaotic around here, but I caught up on reading all your blogs today...however, I broke the cardinal rule where blogging is concerned and didn't comment on them. I know...and I'm sorry. Soooo sorry. Things have been crazy and I've been pressed for time, and I have dial up, so it would have taken hours. Do you forgive me? Please, please say you'll forgive me. I don't know if I can go on if you don't...

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Okay, back to my regularly scheduled blogpost.

This posting was done both in reply to several memes and to be part of BooMama's Christmas Tour of Homes.


As usual, I'm a day late (make that a few) and a dollar short, and still not ready for Christmas, but here goes...

***Disclaimer: Because of the fact that we have a toddler son in our home, and because I'm up to my neck in craft projects right now, please overlook the clutter that crept into a few of my pics. Everything looks just like it would if you were to drop by my house right now. Martha Stewart does not live here. (Of course, I wonder sometimes how much living she actually does in her many fancy sprawling homes. And did her children get to make messes? Just askin')***

Okay, here, we have our Nutcracker collection as it starts off the Christmas season. We started this collection when we were first married (loving my Aunt Pam's fab collection), and have added to it over the years.



Here, our son has several members of the collection engaged in battle.



Which also explains the heavy number of casualties among our smaller population of Nutcrackers over the years.

I'm not sure if you can see it, but back there behind all the craft junk on the table is our Christmas tree. Yep, the tree is up on a table because we were trying to prevent our youngest from breaking every ornament on it.



Here is a picture of our yearly ornament.



Since our first year of marriage, we have purchased a new ornament every year, usually the same one for each of us. This has really added up since we've had kids, as our tree is loaded.

The idea behind starting this tradition was that each boy will each have their own collection to take with them when they get married, along with a list explaining when, where and why we got that particular ornament, and hopefully carry on the tradition in their own families. Providing, of course, that the ornaments survive that long what with the way our toddler manhandles everything. There is quite a history in our collection of ornaments.

Here our yearly ornaments are displayed between the swags of our indoor garland in the archway between our kitchen and dining room. Surprisingly the kitchen side was relatively clean. The view looking the other direction shows the carnage of what was formerly known as my dining and living room areas.



On the counter are the candle holders that will grace the center of our table once all the craft junk is put away. They have to remain up on that high ledge or the boys will wield them like swords. Here is a close up.



Another tradition that began once we had children, was to take a yearly family picture for our Christmas card. These pics are added each year to collage frames on our "Wall of Fam".



It's fun to look back through pictures taken about the same time each year, and see all the changes...especially in the kids.

Each year since our older son has been in school, we've made yearly gifts for teachers, Sunday School and Awana leaders. This is this year's gift...dollar store mugs, a Peppermint Hot Chocolate 'kit', and Biscotti.



We make a separate gift for our Awana Clubbers and our Youth Group kids. Jericho also takes some of these in to give to his classmates at school during their class "holiday" party. This year, it was a cocoa packet and a candy cane in a 'kit' for a personal serving of Peppermint Hot Chocolate.



Below is a gift we make every couple of years for our friends that live nearby. A cookie mix in a jar.



Here we have our Christmas bear collection as I like them to be set up, and then how I usually find them. And yes, that's our ever present pile of laundry on the couch. I know, I know...I'm a frump, what can I say?



We also have a large collection of Nativity Scenes, which we didn't start out to collect, but people kept 'helping' us, and so our collection grew. Now we add to it from time to time, including getting the all the play sets we could find (which was something we figured would help to protect the porcelain ones). Though I try and keep them on display in the living room because they are so cute, this was the best I could do.



I'm also pretty sure there are a few pieces MIA. Probably under the couch cushions or in the water at the base of the tree again. **sigh**

We currently have 18 Nativity scenes around the house, some are in snow globe form, some are crafts our older son made, some are miniatures...but our son's favorite is this 'big' one with the removable baby Jesus. It's survived a vicious and unprovoked attack on the box while it was being stored in the garage simply because my then 3 year old son found a small phillips screwdriver nearby and had at it (remarkably, everything was unscathed), three moves, a couple of earthquakes, two toddler sons and a host of nephews and nieces rearranging the pieces.



One of my favorite times every Christmas is when we turn on all the tree and garland lights in the house, and turn off all the other lighting, and sit around while Jeff reads the Christmas story from Luke 2, and we discuss with our boys the rich significance of the advent of Christ's coming as that Baby in the manger...and what that means for humanity.

Jericho for many years enjoyed the 'treat' of getting to hold the baby Jesus during this special time, as Judah has this year. We're hoping that baby Jesus figurine makes it through the big day, though, as I've had to come running to rescue it on a couple of occasions already. We don't need any more 'missing' Jesus at Christmas time...the Lord knows there is already enough of that out there.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed your tour, and thanks for coming by. You're welcome anytime!