Dec. 16, 2006 - The Christmas Season
I love this time of year! Christmas is absolutely my favorite holyday. The kids and I are taking off three weeks for Christmas. We are having such fun! For the first time this year, we have incorporated a Jesse Tree into our Christmas celebration. I had never heard of a Jesse Tree until this year. Basically what you are doing is tracing the family line of Jesus. You read scripture pertaining to a certain family member and then each child makes an ornament to represent that relative. The oranament is then placed on a tree that is specifically for your Jesse Tree. It has been fun tracing Jesus' family tree. We have learned a lot doing this and things seem to tie together a little bit better in our minds.
I am letting the housework go by the wayside. We are only maintaining. The dishes are being washed, bathroom cleaned, laundry done, and floors swept. We are neglecting everything else. I just want us to have fun. In fact, I think I am going to adopt this philosophy while the kids are growing up. Time with them is just too precious.
So for our Christmas holydays, the the kids are sleeping in later ~ well, what they consider to be late. Will is sleeping in until 9 o'clock or so, but the younger ones are up around 7:30 or 8 o'clock. I am an early bird. Sleeping in late for me is 6 a.m.!
We have been doing a lot of reading! Something none of us can get enough of. One of the best books we have read this year is The Christmas Doll by Elvira Woodruff. It is a very sad story, but it has such a happy ending. Will and Austin even enjoyed it.
We have also been baking Christmas cookies. Our traditional cookies are: Thumbprint, Russian Tea Cakes, Christmas M&M cookies, Peanut Blossoms, and Sugar Cookies. We always make peanut butter fudge too. We are going to try some new recipes for Bon Bons and Chocolate Chip Peanutbutter Ball Surpise.
In the late afternoon or evening, we are sitting down to watch our favorite movies. Some of our favorites are: The Polar Express, The Christmas Box, Time Piece, It's a Wonderful Life, and Little Women. We also have a movie marathon and watch The Lord of the Rings from beginning to end. We munch on popcorn, eat Christmas candy and drink soda. We are so enjoying ourselves!
In the evening, after Luke and Elijah have gone to bed, we do our Advent Celebration. This year we are celebrating while reading Jotham's Journey. It is written by Arnold Ytreeide.
I also purchased The ADVENTure of Christmas by Lisa Whelchel. While using this book, the kids and I have had so much fun learning about Jesus through our holyday traditions.
Did you know that when we say, "Happy Holidays" the original wish was for "Happy holy days?" It was a time that was specifically set aside for worshiping God. Sometime in the sixteenth century, the term started referring to any day off from work and it was a time set aside for rest and pleasure. Slowly over time, the word became holiday, and now the phrase seems to mean "Enjoy this time of year~ no matter you are celebrating!"
Comments
Dec. 16, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by CommunicationFUNdamentals
What a blessed time I had reading your lovely post! Thank you for sharing your new holyday tradtions. I have also been trying to put more of Christ into our CHRISTmas. In fact, I just posted the Merry CHRISTmas Carnival of FUNschooling yesterday! All of the sites I found help put the emphasis on Jesus and not Santa for CHRISTmas.
Another tradition I started was a new way of spelling CHRISTmas. This is just to remind me that the reason for the season is not Santa or gifts or decorations or even family but Christ himself!
JoJo
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