This Christmas is the first Christmas we are able to celebrate with a child who is old enough to understand the basic concepts of Christmas. Last year all she managed to understand was "Santa" and "Presents" despite our attempts to tell her about the real meaning of Christmas.
I recently posted on Life on a Hill about teaching kids what Christmas really means where I had some ideas about what I would like our Christmas traditions to look like. This year we have decided to make a more deliberate effort to form our own family Christmas traditions.
As our extended family don't live locally, this will be the first year since the kids were born that we are going to have Christmas in our own home as Tim will be working over Christmas (preaching at the Christmas services). This means that we can try out new ways to share Christmas with our family and create our own traditions.
To mark the beginning of our Christmas celebrations, we decided that the first Saturday of December would be filled with decorating the house and beginning our talks with the kids about the meaning of Christmas.
For something special we started the day with yummy croissants and read the Christmas story from the kid's Bible. We then got ready and took a trip to the local farmer's market to purchase important food supplies for the day (fresh bread and a massive bag of cherries). We couldn't resist and began eating the bread and cherries in the car on the way to our next stop.
The next stop was the Christmas tree farm. As both Tim and I grew up in families which had real Christmas trees we decided to include this tradition in our family. I found a farm just outside Canberra Christmas Tree Keng where you can choose and cut your own tree. The kids were excited to see so many Christmas trees and they helped us pick the perfect tree. With a saw they provided we (Tim) chopped down this tree and popped in the the trailer to take home. The lovely people at the farm gave us lollypops for the kids and lollies for us (that worked nicely in keeping the kiddies quiet on the way home).
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| Our tree! |
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| Our tree with us girls and my bump |
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| Emily helps with the sawing |
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| Lolly pop and a free fly which Claire couldn't shake |
When we arrived home we put some Christmas music on and reenacted the Christmas story with the help of the Fisher Price Nativity play set. This is such a great toy as the kids can play with it without breaking it, while learning the story of Jesus' birth.
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| Reenacting the Christmas story |
After some lunch and putting our littlest person into bed we started to decorate our gingerbread house. It was an interesting experience trying to balance the creative talents of two adults with the creative talents of an almost three year old....but we were happy with the result. Even little Claire "helped" when she woke up (mainly by stuffing her face with lollies and pulling lollies back off the house).
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| The constructions begins |
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| Claire eats some lollies |
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| I get creative |
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| Claire eats some lollies |
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| I eat some lollies |
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| Finished house |
When the time came to decorate the tree the girls were very excited. I think they just thought we would have a naked tree and were happy with that idea. We went for a silver and red theme and the kids get excited every night when the lights go on.
For the rest of the day the girls enjoyed watching the Colin Buchanan DVD, King of Christmas. They watched it over and over and over again. We just relaxed and enjoyed our new Christmas traditions coming to life. We can't wait to continue to see our kids learn more over the coming weeks and to show them how important the birth of this little baby born over 2000 years ago is to us.
What are your Christmas traditions? Are you planning to create new ones this year?
Linking up with Jess from Diary of a SAHM for IBOT for the first time!
Linking up with Jess from Diary of a SAHM for IBOT for the first time!
