what a wonderful Christmas our family had. the weeks leading up to Christmas were spent making 7 dozen cookies to give to neighbors and friends. shopping trips to over crowded stores, dinners that you leave saying, "that was so good. no sweets tomorrow" (and then you say the same thing the next night), driving to the same house once a week to watch the light show coordinated to Christmas music, taking the kids to have their picture taken with santa, more shopping. and then Christmas Eve, oh Christmas Eve. the night i look forward to all year. we go to church at 5:30 and worship God with beautiful Christmas songs. praising Him for sending His son, Jesus. what a beautiful time it is to be still and remember the real 'reason for the season'. we then head over to my parents house and have homemade soup and sandwiches. then we go home and put on our Christmas pajamas and watch Home Alone, Elf, Christmas Vacation and Home Alone 2 in front of the fire until we fall asleep. Emma was 15 months old this year instead of 3 months which made opening gifts more fun this time around. my husband and i grew up with very different Christmas traditions and we are excited about coming together and creating our own and still incorporating some of our past traditions for our children. baking, looking at Christmas lights, picking out our tree, decorating, reading Twas the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve, having the kids picture taken with Santa (one of my childhood traditions-my mom has 18 years of me sitting on Santa's lap), and many more we hope to start next year when Emma is even older. among all of these traditions, my hope and prayer for my children is that they will know and love Jesus, and know the true meaning of Christmas. next year Emma will be old enough to perform Christmas songs on stage at church. my heart melts just thinking about it.
