Christmas Traditions and Activities

I love the Christmas season. Especially now that I am a mom. I love all the warm, cozy memories that get made with family and friends during this time of year. I enjoyed the Christmas season so much this year, that I didn't stop long enough to blog about how we have been enjoying it. So, here are some of the Christmas activities and traditions from this year that I hope my girls will remember.

1. Broadway Babies

For Anna's birthday this year my parents paid for her to participate in a group called the Broadway Babies. That meant she and the other Broadway Babies sang Christmas songs at several community events (including Miracle on Main Street and The Lighting of the Trees) this season. Anna loves to perform and she absolutely glowed with excitement at each of these performances. She even got to sing a small duet, and I never left one of her performances dry eyed.

As the picture below shows, the songs made everyone feel joyful and ready to share Christmas cheer.

2. Kids Christmas Party

For the past few years I have gotten such joy out of planning Christmas parties for children. The first party I did was for Anna and a couple of her preschool friends (back when she was 3). The girls played games, made crafts, and were surprised when Santa stopped by.

The past two years our Christmas party has been for our youth group, and because it is at our house my children get to participate too. We play games, share hot chocolate and other goodies, and make crafts for the shut-ins at church. We have SO much fun at these parties and I enjoy them every bit as much as the kids.

3. Advent Workshop

Our church hosts a workshop at the beginning of every advent where families make gifts that they can share with others during the Christmas season. We fill gifts in a jar, make ornaments, write cards to soldiers, etc. The workshop itself is lots of fun, and I love having the gifts to share and choosing who we will give them to each year.

4. Christmas Caroling

This is by far one of my favorite Christmas activities. My church goes Christmas Caroling to our shut-ins and we deliver the ornaments our youth group made at the Christmas party. People of all ages join in the Christmas Caroling and when we fill a yard or a porch and somebody opens their door to our singing I am always so struck by how blessed we are to have such a wonderful church family. This year two of our long time members lost a granddaughter. She was pregnant, and it was a tragic death (although the baby was delivered and is doing well). I can only imagine how hard this Christmas was for them though. When they stepped out on to their porch to hear us sing, I was so glad that they were able to see just how many people they had who were going to help pull them through this Christmas season. Church family is such a blessing.

5. Christmas Crafts

I think the teacher in me just doesn't know how to get through the season without some good old Christmas crafts. Before Anna started school we would do crafts all throughout the month of December. This year I had to put up a bigger tree because even though the girls are only 3 and 6, we already have too many homemade ornaments for our old one. Since Anna was at school all day every day this year, we didn't get to do as many. That's okay though..we did have a lot of fun painting this glass bulbs and making these snowmen.

6. The Church Christmas Program

Okay, the girls were seriously so cute this year I could hardly stand it. This was Alaina's first year to participate in the Christmas program and she was SO excited. She kept asking all month when she was going to get to go to the front of the church and sing and ring the bells. I can not recreate in words how adorable her cheesy little Chicklet smile was all through the program. (What's a Chicklet smile? Well, Alaina's two front teeth have always reminded us of the white Chicklet gum, and so we refer to her adorable smile as the Chicklet smile.) She kept waving at us (namely her Uncle Kelly who was taking great pride in distracting her) , and scrunching her little face up in that melt your heart smile. I laughed myself silly at the way her whole body shook as she tried to ring her bell. And felt great pride at the way Anna kept track of not only her own bell, but Alaina's also. She kept Alaina right on track, nudging her whenever she got so caught up in flirting with the audience that she forgot to ring her bell. I could hear also how much Anna's participating in Broadway Babies helped her confidence in singing grow. I was able to hear her voice above all the others as she sang out.

7. Family

The best part of Christmas is sharing a day with all the people you love the most, when everyone is filled with such joy. When I think of Christmas (even the ones from my childhood) what I remember isn't the presents, but the joy. How happy everyone is that day. I just remember all the smiles on the people I love the most, and my heart feels like all is right.