The holidays usually mean a lot of family commitments, running around from house to house, credit card debt, and wrapping paper strewn all around. The holiday season is typically much more stressful than a time for celebration and joy. This year, my husband and I have made a resolution to be protective of our Christmas holiday. Our extended family will likely have a lot to say about it, but we are going to remain firm in starting our new family traditions that focus on our core family unit.
We will continue to go to Midnight Mass and Chinese dinner with my father on Christmas Eve. However, this year, we are checking into a hotel suite with a full kitchen and fireplace on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. After Mass, we will go back to the hotel, open up our one gift (our new Christmas morning pajamas!), and wake up Christmas morning to open presents by the fireplace! My husband has always wanted to have a Christmas with a real fireplace, so we found a hotel that will help us make that happen. We are taking our small tree and staying at the hotel for a few days. We always go to “Awaited”, the Christmas show that Crossroads Church puts on each year. Free tickets are available November 24th, and I can’t wait to get ours!
As I wrote in a previous post, our daughter has lost sight of the true meaning of Christmas, so we are steering her away from the it’s-all-about-the-presents view she has developed. This year, we sent money to the little girl we sponsor through Compassion International, and we are sponsoring a child in the city that might otherwise not get any presents this year. We got a couple small gifts for our daughter, but she thinks she is not getting anything this year. We told her that Christmas is about Jesus’ birthday and not about presents. We are going to bring her kid’s Bible to the hotel, so we can read the full Christmas story with pictures.
We will continue our Elf on the Shelf tradition as well (I have a separate post all about that fun!). The elf has pajamas to open on Christmas Eve as well! Since we have a biracial family, our little elf is African-American, and we also wanted a Nativity set that was multi-cultural and more true to the brown skin tones that Jesus and His family would have actually had, being from the Middle East. To our rescue (and to fulfill one of my newest obsessions), the owner of Wooly Llama Pegs made a custom order for us to incorporate into our new holiday traditions! The Holy Family is painted in a light brown skin tone (which happens to closely match my daughter and husband!) We also have a white wise-man and a darker brown wise-man as well. I am so excited that Emily was able to create our pegs that are unique just like our family!
I am sure we will continue to evolve our newly-founded traditions, but I am excited to see how it brings our little family closer together and gives our daughter memories to cherish throughout her entire lifetime!
