time online

i just want to say that getting time at a computer is a big challenge for me, so i don’t spend nearly the time i want connecting here. my sweet husband knows this and for christmas he reformatted our old laptop so it actually runs well enough to, say, check my email (which it couldn’t muster up the energy for previously). and now i have it set up unconventionally just above counter height on the top of a little bookshelf in the dining room. i’m so excited because it will be more or less out of the kids’ line of vision (thus diverting some of their interest in it) and it is in a major area of the house which basically means it will be accessible to me even when i’m in the middle of everything else (cooking, doing dishes, taking care of the kids, etc.) so what if i’ll be standing up? i’ll even manage to be less sedentary than most when using the computer. i’m very excited. i hope you see why this fits in so well with my effort to live deliberately and cultivate creativity, and even health. 🙂

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more christmas traditions

i have a lot of fantasies about christmas too. well, i’m fond of holidays in general and have a lot of traditions i want to develop for other holidays too, but since we’re here and it’s coming up, i’ll limit myself to christmas at the moment.

in no particular order:

• have knitted stockings, all personalized (in my family they will all be pretty different from each other, they’ve been picking patterns this year…. i’m hoping to finish them for next year)
• wear christmas pajamas (i’m also very fond of pajamas)
• i love the idea of making a wreath! that hasn’t been on my list but your picture and forrest’s family’s tradition appeals to me
• read christmas stories throughout the month (i have been gradually accumulating kids books, and hope that as the kids grow the collection will mature with them, though i hate some “christmas” stories and their thrift store emotional triggers. i mostly like traditional stories (the fun silly ones like rudolf etc., and Christ-centered ones, meaning the story of his birth and life…)
• i REALLY want to see the nutcracker as well
• i’ve never been to a messiah sing-in, though i’ve seen them advertised a lot…i know i like listening…
• christmas caroling followed by hot cocoa

you know what’s funny? as this list goes on, and i’m not that close to finished,  i’m feeling increasingly overwhelmed rather than excited by it. i guess it’s because there are many things i know i won’t do this year and possibly not even the next or the one after that….

the first thing (the stockings) is really the only one i want to work on immediately (even though i’m planning ahead by a year).

if i could just buy tickets to the ballet that would be next on my list…but that being an absolute financial extra right now, it’s impossible this year.

at some point i like the idea of getting a live tree and planting it after christmas. i’ve thought of this and talked about it almost every year for many years, but this is the first time i actually looked at some. with my tree budget of $20, i was saddened that live ones (at home depot anyway, i had to go to the closest place with kids in tow and a time limit) are either only a foot tall or quite expensive. i’ll just keep looking into it oh so slowly (as is my way) and some day i will do it. and then do it that way every year.

i also like having a simple homey tree and don’t want to get into having a decorator one. i loved having homemade decorations as a kid. right now we haven’t made a lot (i think that will come as the kids get older and more crafty) but the one’s i have are little wooden figures and the felt and straw ones that kaarina and i purchased and split last year. i also tied jingle bells to yarn…. the next things i want to add to the tree are led lights, rather than the cheap tiny ones that don’t always last from year to year, and wooden beaded garlands. i’ve thought of stringing popcorn or something as well… again, that’s probably something for next year or later.

it’s funny now that i’m continuing the list even though i said i was overwhelmed. i guess i still want to write about it.

other traditions:

• my in-laws started this one a few years ago: on or shortly before christmas eve they would take the family to dinner and then go to a bookstore and let everyone browse and pick something out for themselves (with a budget of about $25 each. the first year we actually went home and wrapped them up so the others could be “surprised” at what we chose. in following years i think we haven’t done that part. since we moved away they just send us money with the hopes we’ll do something similar.
• get a good family game each year. (last year we got candyland 🙂 )
• get a good christmas movie each year (james and i together are sort of media-files, our dvd collection serves as a small library to some of our friends)
• when i was little we used to dress up and act out the christmas story. i loved it when i got to be mary (and wear a lace tablecloth over my head, not accurate, but it felt princessy and somehow appropriate to me for the mother of the Savior), and i loved pretending to be an angel (wearing a sheet and a halo out of tinsel), or a shepherd (bathrobe), or the innkeeper, or a sheep. we always took pictures, it was great.
• on christmas morning we always got to get into our stockings first but couldn’t open presents until everyone was up. we held hands kneeling in a circle, sang happy birthday to jesus, prayed, and then exchanged our gifts (beginning one by one but ending in a frenzy of wrapping paper and exclamations of christmas fun)
• my mom always set up a puzzle (the kind with a bajillion pieces) and a box of chocolates on a card table sometime after thanksgiving (though sometimes before). you could only eat a chocolate if you put a piece in the puzzle. doing puzzles is one of my mom’s family’s traditions (she used to do them with her dad). i like doing it with my mom, but i don’t know if i could do one on my own…. so i haven’t ventured this tradition in my family yet, though i might as my kids get older.

anyway, i list these christmas memories largely because i want to create for my children the enjoyment i had of the season when i was growing up.

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Christmas traditions

i have a lot of dreams around Christmas traditions, but haven’t been very good at bringing these to life.
here’s some ideas i want to implement.

• i really want to make an advent calendar! i hope to get to it this year… maybe not get it done, but get to it! (find a pattern, get supplies, start on it…) in each pocket there could be a treat & a small family activity/service to do that day.
• also, forrest’s family always makes wreaths together. we’ve done that together, & we really enjoy that. this year we got a bunch of holly from my sister meg, & then we drove along the nebo loop & got more evergreen to add. (this picture is last year’s wreath.)
• i want to sing a Christmas hymn & read a scripture or a Christmas story before or over dinner every night in december. (we’d have to have dinner every night!) i heard of this last year & really liked the idea, but wanted to pick out all the scriptures beforehand… & nothing every happened. last night we sang “joy to the world” together in bed. 🙂 …and i tried to remember & quote the scripture about shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night…
• another thing we did last year that i loved was go to provo’s “many lands” store & buy a bunch of fun treats like german marzipan & finnish licorice to go in our stockings.
• i also want to try to go to the nutcracker & a messiah sing-in.

what family traditions are you trying to create of preserve?

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