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December 1, 2006
Our Christmas Traditions
Well, some of these are "new" traditions, but others have been around for a while. First, we usually put up our tree on December 1st (or the first Saturday in December). We have had this miniature tree for going on 20 years with its miniature toys and gifts on it. (see center of mantel for our miniature tree)
As you can see in this picture, we have those little golden, engraved ornaments for our children for each year that they have had a Christmas. We have them on a ribbon for easy display. They get a new ornament each year. We gave the oldest son his ribbon of ornaments for his first Christmas with his wife. Today he tells me he doesn't know where they are right now, but hopefully they are still in his possession.
We also have a golden ornament for each of the children we have had that went directly to Jesus' waiting arms instead of ours. There are five of these blessings in Heaven. We have a golden, engraved ornament for our foster daughter, too…wherever she may be now.
We don't have a Christmas tree this year (new tradition), we have a "Nativity Tree".
DH has constructed us a corner shelf (where the shelves remove and the sides fold for easy storage) that we can display all of our Nativity sets on. Right now we only have 10. But each year seems to bring more. The bottom shelf sits 18 inches off of the floor so that we can nestle the gifts under the Nativity Tree. As you can also see in this picture, we wrap all our gifts in brown paper and tied with a piece of colorful material or twine. Trying to keep the focus off of the gifts and onto the Giver.
Each morning from December 1 through the 24th we have a small gift for one of the boys to open. This tradition started with an advent calendar that we had in Honduras with tiny gifts to open each day in December. Now we just collect small things all year long until we come up with 24 gifts. We put them in brown paper bags numbered 1-24 and each morning one son gets to open (and keep) the present. We only have two sons left at home, so one opens the odd numbered gifts and the other opens the even numbered ones. This helps with counting down the days until Christmas too.
During our evening family devotions in December we read part of a Christmas novel out loud. One chapter each evening or however it will work out to last 24 days. We always pre-read the book before reading it out loud. This year we are doing the Cinnamon Bear radio drama. It's a lot of fun. You should look into it.
We traditionally have homemade tamales for Christmas Eve supper. This tradition started in Honduras as well. A very yummy tradition. When Christmas morning arrives, we read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and open the gifts all by the light of the fireplace or candles/kerosene lanterns. Also a Honduran tradition since we rarely had electricity there.
That about does it for Christmas traditions. We don't do stockings or Santa (never had…even before we were Christians) We try to portray the true meaning of Christmas with only three gifts per child. We don't do lists or ask what the child wants for Christmas either. And since we don't watch TV (haven't since 1995) they are not covetous of all the commercialism out there. They are very happy with whatever we have given to them.
Merry Christmas to you all!
~Betsy
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December 3, 2006 - Untitled Comment
And by the way, I have a nativity scene I love. My mom bought it for me in a little market in Peru where it was handcrafted. All of the pieces are done in a very central-American style, very ethnic and unique. You might have something like that from Honduras yourself, I'd bet...