The next year he opened another Santa and said, “Look Olivia, we have another Christmas Santa.” My mom quickly corrected him and said, “No Eric, those are for YOU.” My mom has a habit of buying a collection for someone, wrapping them YEARS in advance and then giving them each year for the next 15 years. As expected, Eric has received a Santa Collectable Doll each year. It has become one of the highlights of Christmas and it is not complete until he has opened his Santa.
The years have ranged from “praying Santa”, “Millennium Santa”, “Motorcycle Santa”, “Santa reading to a little girl” the year we had Elizabeth, and “gardening Santa” (Eric REALLY likes gardening – NOT!).
SO what Santa will this year bring?? Stay tuned!
Here are some of the things we do to show the “real” meaning of Christmas…
We have a birthday cake for Jesus. It is red velvet and we have made up symbolism to the red being Christ’s blood, the white frosting is the purity we have from our sin when we accept Him as our Lord, one year we decided there was plenty of Jesus to go around (there was LOTS of cake left over with all the other desserts!), etc. etc. Here are some old pictures of us singing Happy Birthday to Jesus…
We have a “caring tree”. We put up ornaments of the ways we “loved as Christ loved”. These are the “true presents” we give each other. The kids are good at coming up with things and find things to do for each other so they can put up an ornament. The first year we did it was 2004 as the kids were starting to understand being kind to each other. One of the ornaments from that year said “Elizabeth helped Bekah find her silky”. Another said, “Daddy took care of the girls for 12 days while mommy was on a mission trip to Africa”.
This year we are hanging them on an actual tree (previous years we used BIG paper and drew a tree and then added paper ornaments). The other day we went online and printed some Christmas symbols and Bekah cut them out and taped ribbon on to hang them. The tree is starting to fill up with REAL gifts!
We also make presents for each other, try to keep perspective on the amount we spend and the number of gifts to keep the focus off of what we are getting. I do love to give!
One of my favorite Christmas presents was Eric taking the girls for a photo shoot. Looks like they had fun and I LOVE the pictures! It captures them so well. Only problem was I got the email proofs before they even arrived home because my account was linked to our membership – whoops! I tried not to look, but I had to. What a sweet hubby!
My friend Kristen Young does something fun with her kids. They go look at Christmas lights in different neighborhoods and pick a winner for the night. They then present the house with a gift… Kristen explains it better. Kristen, chime in. I love the idea!
We read the Christmas story from the Bible (and other books too) and usually act it out – which so far has ended each year with arguing over who is doing what role and who is not doing their role right – maybe this year we will have fun doing it (nah, probably not!).
I just tucked my little guy in bed with his Cpap machine on - our first night at home with our settings. Please pray he will leave it on. We actually are only at 6. When they went to a 9 his central apnea actually got worse (cpap will not help with his central apneas). Dr. Robertson told me not to talk to the techs to get my info… I guess I should listen! Good thing I didn’t actually start using before meeting with Dr. Hopkins today! She does not feel his apnea is the cause of the pulmonary hypertension and subsequent issues in the heart. Not sure where that leaves us, but I have some questions for Dr. R on Friday. Granted we really won’t know much until another echo after trying the machine for a while.
I’m excited for school to be out and hang with my kids! Please pray we spend this holiday at home relaxing and having fun! Praying for your holiday to be fun too! Blessings! Love, Olivia
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