Christmas Traditions



We started a few new Christmas traditions at our house this year.  I figured this would be a good time since we weren't going to be doing any traveling and the kids are at such fun ages.

First, we were sent one of Santa's special helpers to stay at our house during the season to help us remember the true meaning of Christmas.  His name was Elmer and the kids loved looking for him each morning.  Santa sent them a letter explaining how important Jesus is and that Elmer would be watching to see if they were trying to be like Jesus everyday.

 

Elmer quickly caught on that Jaxson loves jokes and so each day he brought him a new holiday joke.  Jaxson thought this was pretty cool.

 

Another fun tradition we started was each night we would unwrap a Christmas book.  I found a few at second hand stores but most of them I borrowed from the library. 

The kids looked forward to it every night.

 Of course, we did some normal Christmas preparations like some crafts.

 And lots of baking.

 We ended up sending over 9 dozen cookies to the hospital and made more for friends and neighbors, and different parties.  I was a little baked out by the end of the season but so thankful (at times) for my little helpers.

It seems like each year my kids have a different way of rearranging the nativity sets we have on display.  One year they were always knocked over like bowling pins from Jaxson.  This year Kennadie always had to rearrange all the people to circle the baby Jesus.

 It didn't matter how many times we put them in the traditional set up she changed it back to this.

 

 A few pictures of them in the Christmas Sunday best.

 

 Another fun holiday event this year was our first Ugly Sweater Party with friends.  Our family actually won a prize for our amazingly ugly sweaters and Jaxson told everyone about it.  Good times!