Merry Christmas from our family to yours !!

Merry Ho-ho. Have an amazing Christmas!

Love ya! ~J

Traditions

I tend to gravitate toward the traditional. I love being a stay at home mom, making dinner and baking and having those traditional roles. I love everything domestic.
Except dishes and laundry but really who likes those?
I love to have routines. Traditions.

Every year I strive to have a better and better Christmas for my child(ren).

For as long as Zack and I have been together we have gone driving to see Christmas lights in the area. We have hidden a pickle ornament in our tree. We have started our Christmas morning as we both did as children. Stockings first. Then gifts.
(we were usually made to wait in our families for a bit, for parents to wake up or breakfast but we don't wait!)
Two years ago we started the tradition of cutting down our own Christmas tree.
Last year we started doing an Advent Calendar that we got from Costco.
This year we started a few new traditions. A paper ring chain, counting down the days to Christmas. And of leaving a note to Santa, cookies and milk.

So tell me. What are your traditions?

Ho Ho Came!

Those are the words we heard the second we were woken up!
Grayson was so excited. First we had to go to the window and see if Ho Ho was still in the front yard.
Nope.
But the reindere food we put out was gone. Then we gathered ourselves together and went downstairs.
This is how it all looked before.

G was very excited to see that Ho Ho enjoyed his cookies and milk.
Ho Ho even left him a little note about continuing to be a good boy and thanking him for the treats.

And this is the train wreck after we finally got through the unwrapping. I always love this part the best personally.

But at the end of the day it really is just about the box!

Thank you Grandma Linda!


Thank you Papa!

oh so sad

What happens when you start with a 21' Christmas tree. Subtract 2 feet from the top and a foot or two off the bottom.

Now attempt to get it in the house and in the stand.

Subtract 4-5' from bottom and ADD back on the 2' from the top.
(with wire)

At first this math works out to a gorgeous tree.
BUT

Eventually it ends up looking like this

Yup that is the top 2' dangling because it not longer drinks the water we provide.
obviously.
It is also brown. Luckily it is SO far up there you can barely tell that part. :)

Merry Christmas from our 16' Charlie brown tree!

*Zack did get back on the ladder and rewire it straight so it would look normal again.

Christmas Decor 09

I know I may have to join Christmas Decorators Anonymous but here is our Christmas tour of 09!

One of my favorite pieces, my antique tea cart, with a tiny fraction of the village.

When I was a kid my mom had a tree like this, but it got broken. After Zack and I got married I found someone online and had one made.

These Princess house hurricane lamps my Nana gave me for my birthday when I was 19 (I think), another fave.

Our little artificial tree- complete with pine tree air freshener. :)

And the stockings were hung by the stair case with care...

Grayson calls our advent calendar his "coo-coo clock"- I love Grayson-isms.


The living room where the big tree resides, dwarfing our furniture and room.

The big tree in its full glory. Well not really since I am using my iphone... too lazy to go find the real camera I have not pulled out in months.



looking up into the big tree from the floor.



I am also joining The Tip Junkie's virtual home tour, go check out everyone else's amazing decor she has posted over there!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas tree!

For the last two Christmases and last Saturday we have hopped in our mini van and headed up to a friend and former client of Zack's, Randy and Stephanie's house. They have a lovely tree farm. They originally bought the property to be closer to Stephanie's parents, and not wanting the trees tried to buy it without the them. The seller wouldn't go for it. So every year they let a select few come to pick out their trees. (its not open to the public) We feel very blessed to be a part of those select few. The trees are gorgeous! And Randy and Stephanie are very generous to sell them for $20.

This year we must have lost our minds or something because we picked a HUGE tree. Not that last year's was anything to sneeze at, but this one is bigger. 21' when we cut it down and tried to haul it up the hill to the van. And that was only the beginning of the adventure.

the men folk getting ready to cut the one we picked out.

Grayson watching with me. Did I mention it was 25 degrees out that day! burrr.

Monkey and me.

TIMBER!

Whoops, it fell the wrong way! It was supposed to fall between the two trees next to it, but that would be too easy. Instead it fell ON one of those trees... it was then that Zack realized his major mistake with this tree.

It is SO heavy. They didn't realize that the trunk is at least double the one from last year. Making it almost impossible to move. Last years, Zack and Randy carried it up the hill and Zack put it in the house himself. Not so much for this one.

This one they had to get the truck for. (Randy said this is a first)
Then they pulled the truck as close as they could to the van and rolled the tree over Zack and onto the van.


Once we got it home the adventure continued. We asked our neighbor Tom to help carry it in. Tom and Zack= bad idea. They should have asked a few other neighbors- or an army. There was much grunting. The chandelier was caught. I uncaught it with the broom. Then the broom got caught. Oi. Got that unstuck. Meanwhile the tree- in the stand- was slid along the wood floor (scratttttchhhhh(s) bumped into the wall to the dining room (scrattttttcccchhhh(s) and then bounced off the chandelier again .
Finally, they got it upright enough to tighten the stand. Except that remember I mentioned the trunk was HUGE? Ya, they got it up and it stripped out one of the sides of screws in the stand (which was supposedly for a tree up to 10' tall- oops- we were about 18'1.5" at this point with trimming. But it was the only one Zack could find when he went to get one when we got home from getting the tree)

So its up. Finally. I took this picture. Notice Zack dead on the floor (have I mentioned he has a bad back?!) I walked over to it and he asked me to shake it to make sure its sturdy. I did then let go. Zack gasped as it fell over, I "caught" it. Mind you this tree weighs somewhere in the hundreds of pounds. (and I am 8 months pregnant!)
I was supposed to be getting ready for work so I told Zack it would need to rest against the wall/ windows until we could get more help, obviously I could not hold it all night! We propped it against the wall and I went to work.

I made him promise not to do anything with it until he got help. I also told him if I came home and it was shorter I would be okay with that! :)

A few hours later I got photo in a text message

As I recall he promised he would not do anything alone... he lied. He cut a few feet off... BY HIMSELF! Then lowered it back into the stand. He swears it wasn't heavy by that point.

Delirious maybe.

He also wired the point back on! He had cut it off to get it in the house. It looks great now.
Decorated tree pics in the next post...

Kindness matters

photo borrowed from www.stjameseatontown.org

What does it mean to be poor?

After talking to my friend, C yesterday I started thinking about that. We talked about the families on those giving trees and how to best help them and the ways her church is helping families in need this season. Zack and I (until this year and last- when we just had no extra) have always donated our time, money and/ or goods to some sort of organization.

We saw true poverty some of those years. People who work the farms in our surrounding areas come to mind, living on top of one another in tiny shacks with paper thin walls and no insulation and a small space heater for heat. We would take the children the bike or whatever they had asked for. The hardest part was the children's faces who were receiving nothing from us. We didn't get to decide who received what, just delivered the goods. And yet we felt the guilt.

This year is no different. I feel the guilt. I have a home. With heat. And it's bigger than many families will ever know. I know how blessed I am, how quickly it can all go away. And yet... I feel guilty.

In the last two days I have received two very generous emails from lovely woman I don't even know offering to send Grayson toys for Christmas. To help fill any void with a baby coming. And while I feel so grateful and loved, I feel guilty even considering taking their kind offers. I know there is a much greater need out there than ours/ mine.

My child wants for nothing. Not that we have ever rushed out and bought him everything, but I planned well: buying used almost always and waiting for sales when not. We also have the luck of a few generous grandparents. Grayson will not care what is under his tree this year. He will unwrap "things". I stocked up on pj's he needs and some other clothes and a few toys at the last resale out town had. And as most of you know I make most everything else anyway.

But ultimately he will want for nothing because it's SO not about "things". It's about the love of family and friends. (and the boxes the toys come in!) It's about the kindness of strangers and being kind to your neighbor. He will help me bake cookies and goodies and help us deliver them to friends and mail them to family. He will see the faces of those who receive and I hope in his life that is what he remembers.

That kindness matters.

I have always felt that if you had a good husband/ wife who loves you and children to love and be proud of and all of your basic needs met then you were pretty rich.

So for those reasons, we are not poor. Our bills may be stressful and we may have no idea what will happen once the baby is here and I'm not working( if Zack doesn't have a job) but really it doesn't matter. At the end of my life I won't care about bills or money. I will care about the smiles I left on peoples faces and the people who love me.

I hope they are both far and wide.

Please, be generous with your neighbor this season. Give where you can. I will be donating some toys to children in need as well. Because I am not poor where it counts. And the rest is just money.