Christmas 2017 in our household was SO exciting and I imagine it’s only going to get more exciting in the years to come. Having Christmas in our new house was amazing. Ben and I both feel so at home and love our house and neighborhood so much. It’s a great feeling. Since our children are still fairly young, we are still establishing our family traditions and deciding what’s important to us.
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Here are a few things we’ve established so far.
Before Christmas
Giving Back/Volunteering
It’s so important to us that we teach our children the importance of helping others and the holiday season is a perfect time. I’m not gonna lie, thinking of doing anything with 3 kids (2 who are too young to realize what’s going on) is just exhausting. It can seem pointless. But if we don’t start now, it’s likely that we won’t ever start. My parents are both very involved in a food pantry in my hometown. They had a massive toy drive and my parents took the kids. Before they went I explained to Theo that not all children are as fortunate as he is and that the toys that were collected were not for him.
We also made cookies for our neighbors (and then did not give them to them because they came out so ugly… like for real… that’s what happens when you have a 3-year-old help, but I still was too ashamed to give them away).
My favorite thing that we did was to go through our toys and choose which ones to donate. Theo loved helping with this. He kept choosing toys and saying “I’m going to give this one to a boy! I think he’ll like it!” I’d love for this to be an annual thing for us!
Baking
See above. We baked and I wanted to give cookies to our neighbors, buuuut. They did not come out so well. They tasted great but didn’t look so great.
Christmas PJ’s
Yes, we are one of those families that does matching PJ’s! The kids LOVE it and love that mommy and daddy match them. I give them their PJ’s the day after Thanksgiving so we can get the most use out of them and we wear them to decorate our tree that night.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
Church on Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve service is one of my favorites. It is always so reverent and peaceful and the music just puts me in the Christmas spirit immediately. This year, since Christmas Eve was on a Sunday, the service was at 10:00 AM.
Christmas Day was the BEST DAY EVER. Theo came out of his room when his clock turned green
at 7:30. The twins don’t usually wake up until 9:00, and I didn’t want him seeing the Christmas tree without his sisters. He was so good about it; I was very impressed! He came into the kitchen with us and helped us prepare breakfast and didn’t complain at all! We finally woke his sisters up around 8:30.
We opened our stockings first, which are in a different room than our Christmas tree.
Presents
My husband and I aren’t big into giving gifts to each other. We always fill each other’s stockings and do a few small, practical things (think slippers, books, calendars, etc). This year we decided as a gift to ourselves we would spend a night away at a bed and breakfast for new years eve.
For our kids, that’s a different story. I am BIG into quality over quantity. We DO NOT NEED a million new toys for Christmas. However, I would also rather give my children a big Christmas than buy them random toys throughout the year. So, throughout the year, when I see a good deal on a quality toy that I know they will like, I buy it and save it for Christmas. I am also a fan of regifting things that were Theo’s to the girls.
Santa gifts:
Paw Patrol – My Size Lookout Tower
This gift was to all 3 children. I swore up and down that I wouldn’t get it for them (too many plastic pieces!) but I totally caved when Theo saw it in a catalog and asked for it about 5,000 times. They’ve been playing with it nonstop, so I am happy that we got it.
Melissa & Doug Buggy Crawl-Through Tunnel
This tunnel was also for all 3. They love it!
Bruder Tow Truck With Cross Country Vehicle
This was Theo’s big present this year. I am really impressed with the quality of the tow truck, but the cross-country vehicle it comes with is just OK. He likes it a lot and plays with it when he isn’t playing with his lookout tower.
Josie and Margo each got one of these bikes. We actually only purchased one new one and cleaned up Theo’s old bike really well and used that. There’s no point in having a perfectly good bike sitting in our garage! You can hardly tell the difference, and they certainly don’t care.
Those were the big gifts, and they were all hits. There were also several smaller gifts from mommy and daddy and they got each other gifts. We actually ended up taking several gifts back upstairs during the kids naptime because they had so much stuff and were so busy playing with their toys… we didn’t want to overwhelm them. Their Birthday’s are coming up, so we will give them the rest of the gifts then.
Our Christmas Day was truly magical and I am already looking forward to next year!