Christmas 2009

In case you do not already know, our family does not celebrate Christmas in the traditional manner. We choose to celebrate Jesus' birth every day of the year. We just focus more on it around the 25th of December. With this in mind, we do not buy each other gifts.

Sometimes I struggle with the decision not to 'celebrate' Christmas. Not because I miss getting presents but because I miss the traditions involved. We usually go to our church's Christmas Eve service, but it was cancelled due to bad weather. I did venture out to go to the grocery store and then spent the evening making sausage balls and oreo truffles. We also had great family time, gave Grant his first real bath, and cooked smores in the fire.

On Christmas morning, the kids opened their stockings. We fill their stockings because my mom use to fill them and I miss her being able to carry on that tradition. This was the first year that Zach and Calyn really questioned us about Santa and whether he is real or not. Zach claimed that if they show him on the news, then he must be real. I told them not to expect a lot of presents in their stockings knowing that I had spent only a few dollars each at the dollar spot at Target. After they opened them Calyn told me that I had made a mistake because she got tons of toys in her stocking. So cute. We cooked a big breakfast and Tim and the kids played outside in the snow.

We went over to the Buschman's house for Christmas lunch. Job and Janis are so sweet in that they make sure that we have a place to go on Christmas. I am so thankful to them and their four children (and two spouses) for allowing us to be a part of their family. We had a great meal and lots of adult conversation

Tonight as we put our kids to bed, we will once again read the Christmas story and remind them about a tiny baby that was born to be king. Merry Christmas everyone!