OK so even with my “brilliant” planning the holidays are sneaking up faster than I want them too!  Is it stupid to wish that we had Christmas all year long?  I would totally vote for that bill!  As for me… I am getting ready!  The black friday ads are starting to leak out on the NET and I am making my list!  YEAH BABY!  That is one tradition that will NEVER be broken.  I can remember being just a kid and every year my dad and I would stand in the line in front of HILLS (yes… you remember HILLS) department store to get my mother a holiday barbie.  My mother STILL gets her holiday Barbie each year.  I think she may be up to 20 years worth of them now… yes!  This year is 20 years!  How cool is that?

When I got older it because a mad dash to Bath and Body works, Kohl’s and fighting off people at Old Navy.  When I married Troy he didn’t GET IT.  But then he started coming along  with us and he adds this to the list of ways that I love to get my adrenaline rushes!  Then the kids came along and now its Toys R Us, Target, Walmart (to price match of course).  There would even be year where my mom and I would shop at 3 am at Walmart with our price match ads and be READY to run to the checkout as soon as the “Black Friday” ad started so that we could make it to more stores!  I also remember being less than 1 month post partum from Owen and being out at 4 am to get us a new Christmas tree!  There was the pallet… everyone was poised and ready for them to unwrap it… There were limbs flying, punches thrown and me… I let them get to the bottom of the stack… found my white lighted tree and SAT on it until the crowd dispersed!  I kid you not!  I came home with my $35 pre lit tree!  LOL  Some man looked at me mean because he put his hand on it but it was UNDER my rear… and come on… have mercy on a post preggo!  I couldn’t lift that!!!

This week in Simplemom’s series is:

6 Weeks Till Christmas: Create a New Family Tradition

For us… this will be a Christmas full of old and new traditions!  The baby sitter is booked (yay Lexi!!!) and the lists are being made for Black Friday.  Last year Troy REALLY wanted an advent calendar.  We found a really cool one on clearance afterward and snatched it up.  We of course will have all of our standard traditions like New Year’s brunch (complete with Monkey bread) and Christmas Eve at my parents (my mother took over my Nana’s traditional Christmas Eve).  But this year we are adding to our list.

On December 19th from 1-3 pm a few couples, including ourselves have volunteered to help host the Lexington Ronald McDonald House’s First Annual Open House. This is near and dear to my heart.  (yes yes… so I have tears trying to write this… I am a sap)  Although we make pretty regular donations (thanks to my couponing skills) I really wanted to do something special.  WHY?  Because I remember the year that we were in the hospital most of December and January dealing with the colostomy take down, aftermath of that and an intestinal shut down which led to the g-tube placement.  Two days before Christmas the amazing child life girls came around and dropped off the little 3 ft Christmas trees.  These were sad little Charlie Brown trees.  It reminded me so much of my Nana’s tree though with the angel hair and the Dollar Store decorations.  They brought it to you in the box so that you could make a memory of “trimming the tree” and that tree sat in the corner of our room.  I refused to take the tree out of the box.  It was a painful reminder of the reality of our life over the past year.  I refused to think that we would NOT spend Christmas at home with our babies.  Thankfully we have a surgeon who cares about us as much as people as he does as patients.  He let us go home on Christmas Eve at 6 pm.  Regardless of the fact that he was emailing before we could even get in the driveway to make sure we were okay (and then several times on Christmas day too… he’s a great person!), we were HOME and that is what really mattered.  Never mind the fact that New Year’s brought a re-admission… it didn’t matter.  I remember how awful it was to sit and look out the hospital window knowing that families were out there, gathered around tables and fireplaces and here we sat.  My heart aches for the family who will reside in that corner room on 4 East this year.  I can’t even think about it without tears.  I so hope that our effort will bring a little Joy to the families who are currently housed and the Lexington RMH.  Families whose lives are turned upside down and whose children are fighting for their lives.  It’s a heavy thing.

But here is my SHOUT OUT to my best bloggy friends!!!  If you would like to HELP US create a Holiday open house spread for the RMH PLEASE contact me!  We would love to have 6-10 families to help us with the cooking, set-up, etc.  I have already recruited a few but I would love for our friends to share this wonderful experience with us!!! schmidt.amber@kentuckystudio.com Email or call me

Here are SimpleMom’s Suggestions for fun new traditions:

1. Jesse Tree

A Jesse tree is a simple tree that holds one ornament per day for a set amount of time, leading up to the final one on Christmas day. Each ornament is a symbol of a particular part of Scripture, starting with creation and leading to the birth of Christ.  You can tweak your jesse tree to reflect your family’s style and budget as well. It can be a separate Christmas tree, of course, but it can also be a craggy branch planted in a flower pot, with lots of branches for hanging ornaments. It can even be a simple construction paper tree cut-out, taped to the wall.

A favorite set of Jesse Tree Ornaments can be found here : http://jessetreeornaments.wordpress.com/

2. Pajamas on Christmas Eve

Our family participates in this tradition!  There is nothing better than adorable pajama clad kids rushing to the Christmas tree on Christmas morning (oh my word I am crying again!  I am a mess today!)

3. Baby Jesus under the Tree

This simple tradition is great for little ones. When you put up and decorate the tree, include a simple empty manger at the base. You can make one out of wood, or you can create a makeshift manger out of a crate, a basket, or even a doll’s cradle.

Each evening, after the kids are in bed, add a little bit of “straw” in the manger — raffia from a craft store works well. Then on Christmas morning, among the gifts, will be the most significant gift reflected in the season — baby Jesus was born. Use a simple, unadorned doll and place him swaddled on top of the straw.

4. Christmas Eve Surprise Cookies

The day before Christmas, deliver cookies to those who have to work — firefighters and policemen, nurses at the hospital, even airline employees at the airport. It’s a small, simple way to cheer up their day when they would probably rather be with family than at work.  We will likely be dropping some off to our amazing nursing staff at KCH!!!  (maybe not on Christmas eve but sometime during the holiday… they all got attached to my rolo cookies )

5. An Annual Ornament

Choose an ornament for each child, each year until they leave the home. See if you can have the ornament reflect something about the child’s personality, an accomplishment they achieved that year, or something else unique. If your daughter was a mouse in The Nutcracker this year, pick a ballerina or a mouse, for example.

I would like to add to this: when your children leave to start their own homes you could gift them this set for their first christmas in their new home

6. Christmas Play

Your kids don’t need to sign up for the community theater or your church’s Christmas pageant to have fun acting out the Christmas story. Some families have a tradition of all the kids in the extended family — all the cousins and grandkids — reenact the first Christmas, complete with shepherds, animals, and wise men.

For us this will be the Bedford Acres “Walk through Bethlehem”.  Our church goes ALL out with a 1/2 mile outdoor trail that is a Bethlehem recreation which of course ends with the Manger Scene.  I was amazed when we went for the first time last year!  There were Roman Soldiers on REAL horses that “rounded you up for the census” and a market place with real animals and livestock all aflutter!  We would love to share this open invitation with you all…  If you do not have a church home please feel free to join us at Bedford Acres.  I will post more info as it becomes available

There are also the myriad of more “traditional” traditions — caroling around the neighborhood, driving around to look at the lights, watching your favorite movies, and the like.

The most important part of family traditions are to keep them simple, keep them lighthearted, and keep them fun. Their purpose is family unity, not a perfect holiday season.

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