Gearing up for Christmas

Thanksgiving was good. 

In years past, I've been very bad about letting the expectation of what the day should feel like get in the way of actually enjoying time with my family.  I'm proud to say I didn't do that this year.  Both sets of grandparents came to join us as well as my brother.  It was nice.

Now it's time to start getting ready for Christmas.  In years past I've almost had a sense of dread about the Christmas season just because there are so many things I feel like I have to do.  This year I'm not going to let myself get sucked into that.

In November, I noticed that 2 TV shows that I record and watch while I fold laundry were bringing me down.  I enjoy Rachael Ray and have started watching The Chew.  I don't love either, but learn quite a bit about cooking from both.  But especially The Chew did nothing but make me feel like if my Thanksgiving table wasn't exactly like theirs I was failing.  What?  When I realized that, I watched much, much less.  Good move.

With Christmas, I'm going to be very watchful of what I read, listen to and watch.  I don't need to make our Christmas a certain way.  I like what our pastor said last year about Christmas:  it's a time of the year when we make a little extra room for Jesus.  Celebrating Him.  Pondering the gift that He is for each of us.

My brother gave the boys a Lego advent calendar.  A year ago I would have wigged out and been weird because it isn't about Jesus.  I'm very, very happy to know that in the past couple of years I've made a real effort to teach my boys that Christ is the reason for Christmas and they get it.  Yes, we have to keep our focus on it, but I feel like we can just enjoy the season now and I don't have to hit that point quite so hard.

Fun is easy for Aaron.  For me, it's a challenge.  I have to brag--on Thursday morning, I knew both sets of grandparents were on the way to our house as well as my brother.  I was cooking a big breakfast for the boys because I knew we would be eating later than they're used to and I didn't want to be bothered with them being hungry if lunch was late.  Boy #1 asked if he could help make the pancakes.  The task master in me that wanted to have a clean kitchen when her mom and in-laws showed up wanted to say, "Shoo, messy child."  But I didn't.  I let the messy little guy help.  He loved it.  Through my actions I told him he was important to me.  I even took a deep breath and enjoyed his company.  Very, very big step for me on that one.  And no one made a comment on the cleanliness of my kitchen.

I'm weird about dishes.  I want them done NOW.  However, I knew my parents and brother weren't staying very long at our house and I chose to spend time talking to my mom instead of washing dishes.  My brother even joined us for a really nice chat.  That was a cool moment that I'm really glad I chose to join in.

I want Christmas to be that way.  Keep my focus on these precious moments with my kids and my Savior.  Today I am planning to make an Advent calendar for us in which we have 24 strips of construction paper linked together, each counting down to 1.  I want to write our church's Advent theme for each week on them so that each day when we tear one off, we're all reminded of what it is we're waiting for.  I was going to do an elaborate 12 days of giving in which we came up with ways to give to those around us, but I've decided to just relax the structured feel of that and let giving as it happens.  Last night #1 went to the store with me.  We bought some groceries for needy families (the store makes it very easy to do so--hooray Brookshire's!) and #1 got to physically put the bag of goodies in the big bin.  Later he told me doing so made him for special because he got to do it and thoughtful because he was giving to others.  Cool, cool moment that I hadn't scripted. 

I'll wrap up here so I can order my address labels for my Christmas cards which are already done!  As you can see, this post is all lofty about the true meaning of Christmas but what really makes me happy?  Knowing it's Nov 30 and I have my Christmas cards in hand.  Oh well.  Some are happy with watching sunsets.  Some with listening to the waves on the shore.  I am happy when my Christmas cards get to people before the 24th of December.  Wow, I am shallow!