Aiming for progress, not perfection.

"...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you
will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
Philippians 1:6

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

christmas traditions.

i'm sorta slow on this one, but i've been letting it marinate in my mind.

i've been in the christmas mood lately. i started looking for presents and making my list. i have to make a list (with prices) first before i buy. it helps keep me organized so everyone gets something, and i don't blow the budget too bad. also we (as in me, delana and kylah) have purchased a few christmas cds in the past couple of days. listening to that music combined with the fact that i took the liberty of breaking out some of the christmas decorations, has readied me for the tradition post. (side note: one tradition i really want to start this year is making peppermint ice cream. yum!)
  • sticky buns on christmas morning and all the kids picking the pecans off.
  • grapefruit ice on christmas morning.
  • excitement over stockings. we can open stockings before everyone wakes up. no presents until everyone has their coffee and contacts. but stockings? as early as you can stand.
  • the wooden deer in the front yard. i think everyone else's have warped or broken or something. but gramma and grampa always have theirs.
  • poetry! i would love to know if there is anyone else on earth who does this, but we write poems to go with our christmas presents. most of them are hysterical. some are tear jerkers. there are almost always made up words and major stretching to make words rhyme. they're supposed to give a hint to what's inside the wrapping. quite fun, and landon has fully embraced this tradition. he's really good!
  • christmas cookies, which includes mock toffee and buckeyes. oh-my-yum. also christmas cookies straight out of gramma's freezer. cold and oh-my-yum.
  • decorating the christmas tree. as much as we didn't want to when we were too-cool teenagers, mom always made us sit around and decorate the tree together. i'm so glad she did. it's making me cry now, and it's the tradition i'm most looking forward to continuing with my kids.
  • the hallelujah chorus. (though i'm aware it was originally written for the easter season.)
  • the plastic popcorn garland on gramma's tree.
  • mannheim steamroller, raffi and kvil christmas music.
  • the smell of cinnamon.
  • not liking eggnog. :)
  • the advent wreath at cumc ("light one candle for hope, one bright candle for hope. He brings hope to every heart, He comes, He comes..."), and hanging the wooden ornaments on the wooden tree advent tree at home.
  • singing christmas carols around grampa's piano. sometimes we even break out the instruments. mom and susan on the violin, tracy and sandy on flute, george on the guitar. the rest of us sing. i can picture the sheet music. it's been the same for a lot of years.
the same for a lot of years...

as so much changes around us, for the good and for the bad, it's really nice that some things stay "the same for a lot of years."

3 comments:

beautiful chaos said...

There are so many traditions here that are either very unique to your family or I am too 'small town' to have heard of them... I especially like the one about writing poems as clues about presents.
And tell me you were joking about not liking egg nog...

Sarah P. Henry said...

not joking!

kablot spot said...

Actually, the first part of Handel's Messiah is about the advent of Christ, the second is the Resurrection, and the third has to do with ascension and Jesus sitting at the right hand of God. The second is the movement that contains the Hallelujah Chorus, but it is appropriate to do the chorus in celebration of any of the events listed above, since the work was written as an observation of all of them. (You may not remember me, but I'm A's sister.)