25 Days of Christmas

As many of you know, our family is VERY into the whole Advent Conspiracy movement in which we spend the month of December focusing on Spending Less, Giving More, Worshiping Fully, and Loving All.  A big part of that is reducing the money we spend at the holidays so that we can do more charitable giving.  Since Ben and I are still in the midst of our Debt Snowball,  we're not so much focusing on charitable giving in large amounts yet.  But we do want to set up some traditions and teach these values to O.

A while back, I saw this idea floating around pinterest and I LOVE it.  So I decided to begin instating in this new tradition this year...

Instead of an Advent Calendar with trinkets, toys, or candy inside, I decided to wrap up our Christmas books!  Then, instead of looking at all of our Christmas books all at one time, O will have the opportunity to open one each day leading up to Christmas.

In order to keep this activity cheap, I've actually been on the look out all year for used and otherwise cheap Christmas books at the Goodwill and at garage sales.  You'd be amazed how many there are, even in July!  Sure, the ones I have aren't necessarily my "all time favorites" right now, but I figure as the years go on, we can weed out, replace, and add to this collection until it becomes Olivia's favorites from her own childhood.  The idea is that you wrap each one, and then number them, opening the one that corresponds with the date each day.

I'll admit that we don't have 25 of them yet… I only own 15 Christmas books at present.  But that works out nicely, since we're not starting until today (12/3), and we are going out of town on 12/18… so we won't be able to continue from 12/18 until 12/25 anyway.

It sort of seems counter intuitive to "teach" Olivia to open one present per day when we're also trying to teach her that the holiday season isn't about gifts.  But here's the lessons that I think are important for her to learn:

1) Being grateful - While Santa isn't going to spray our house with a million gifts on 12/24 and Mom and Dad don't believe in a ton of gifts bought at retail value, O will receive many gifts during her lifetime from family and friends.  It's important to learn to accept gifts graciously and be be happy with each one you receive.

2) Patience - the idea of delayed gratification is very hard to teach any child, much less a toddler.  We may not be totally successful at doing this, the idea of seeing 15 wrapped presents and only getting to open one each day might be hard.  But if we can start instilling this now, maybe it will reduce or prevent the obnoxious habit that many of us (me included!) had as a child to open 15 presents in a row, as fast as possible, and then be bored or disappointed 15 minutes later when it's all over.

3) Reminiscing - this year, all the books will be new for O.  But next year and in the years to come, these will be "old friends" that she remembers from the past and enjoys again, as if they were new!  I have fond memories of the time of year in which my family got out the Christmas books, set them out in the living room to be read over and over for the month.  It was nice to see so many "old friends" on the bookshelf that I'd forgotten about in the 11 months between holidays.

4) Quality Time - each day when we open a book, we'll sit down and read it together, as well as the other books that we've already opened.  Olivia loves to sit on mama and dada's lap and look at pictures.  When we do this, we're not just teaching about receiving a present, we're teaching about spending quality time with family during the holidays-- it's an interaction, not just an item.

5) The Joy of Reading - simply put, any time I can teach my child to love a book instead of a plastic toy that makes noise, I'm thrilled.  I could blather on about that, but it would be a whole post of it's own.  There are all sorts of 'pre reading' skills that are important for O to learn at this age though-- holding a book right side up, turning from left to right, pointing at the pictures and commenting on each page, etc.

And for your viewing pleasure, I thought you'd appreciate the beginnings of our other Holiday pictures from this week…

but before you scroll down, in what ways are you and your family giving less presents and giving more presence this year???

Merry Christmas!

So all of you out there who feel I need to slow down and take it easy will be glad to know that during the entire Christmas weekend, I repeatedly thought to myself, "I should blog right now," but never actually did.  The result means that I've been absentee from this space longer than I wanted to be.  But the other result is that I actually did do a lot of nothing on my 3 day weekend.  Perfect, really!

Christmas this year was excellent - on Saturday we went to my in-laws and participated in an excellent yankee swap where Ben received a knife sharpener (very baby friendly, I think...) and I received a singing, dancing christmas tree.  I haven't put the thing together yet to make it sing and dance, but let's be honest, that's AMAZING!  Sunday was literally a whole lot of nothing.  My Advent Conspiracy for my hubby was not really a secret.  But I think he enjoyed it anyway.  I made his favorite sausage rolls and delivered them to him in bed on Sunday morning.

The rest of Sunday consisted of watching movies, chatting with family and doing a whole lot of nothing.  We returned back to Boston on Monday where my hubby (and his family who came down with us!) painted my kitchen and hall for me!  An excellent yellow color which I think is going to be absolutely cheery and beautiful.  Just what I'll need if I'm gonna be around the house full time for 3 months this spring/summer.

And then surprise of surprises, my parents-in-law stayed in Boston today and my mother-in-law cleaned my house for me!  Literally the best Christmas present I could picture... better than anything she could have purchased.  Our bathtub (and the rest of the bathroom for that matter) is actually cleaner than I've ever seen it-- like, cleaner than when we moved in.  My laundry is done and folded.  And cobwebs are swept out of corners I didn't know existed.  I feel SO RELAXED and blessed tonight!

But it makes me think about the concept of "nesting" which the websites say kicks in during the 2nd trimester.  As I'm rounding out my 2nd trimester (just a couple more weeks to go!), I'm wondering if I've felt the nesting urge.  Ben and I started the long, slow process of reorganizing and redecorating our apartment in the summer (before I was pregnant).  It's been long and slow because we're both sorta ADD about it, but also because we both work full time and it's hard to get to any of it.  So yes, when we have free time, I crave things like finishing the living room projects, starting the kitchen painting, or planning out what we're gonna do in the nursery.  But I don't think it's really to a full blown "nesting" situation.  I think it's just who I am!

Have you guys felt the "nesting" feeling? What did it feel like to you? Did you end up doing any crazy things around the house?

My First Christmas Tree!

This weekend for my birthday, my husband bought me my first christmas tree.  My first real one that I have to water, at least.  It was quite fun and I even teared up a bit-- I'd love to think that I'm just sentimental, but let's be honest, it was probably the hormones.

Regardless, we had a great time blending his traditions of Christmas with mine.  I insisted on shrimp, sausage, cheese, crackers, and Manheim Steamroller (per my family's traditions)

and he taught me how to string cranberries and popcorn (per his)!

p.s., don't ask me why he didn't tell me to smile.  I suppose I'm just special like that.

Meanwhile, we've begun some of our own new family traditions, even before little girl Warren is born... if you look closely at the tree, you'll see two different, unique-to-the-Boston-Warrens things.

First of all, we have mostly home made ornaments on there right now.  We made a bunch together in 12/2009 out of clay and paint.  And then last year, I used our saved wedding cards to make some paper ones too!  I love them.

But second, did you notice the green glow behind/above the tree?  That's right... marry an Event Engineer and your christmas tree gets it's very own LED spotlight.  I'm a lucky girl, no?

I can't wait to include baby girl Warren in some of these traditions next year, in whatever way she's capable.  She'll be about 8 months old so I'm thinking finger painting more ornaments.  Anyone else have ideas on ways to get a little one involved in home made Christmas crafts?

Advent and other gifty memories

As a child, I remember pulling out the christmas decorations (typically around my birthday, thankyouverymuch!) and getting excited to see the "new" things each December that were included.  They weren't new... it's just that after 10 or 11 months off of them, they were re-"new" and exciting to look at, play with, or read.  There were nativities, advent candles, and of course, christmas story books... the best.  When my parents could get us to sit still (I'm sure some years were better than others) we'd even take the time to read favorites aloud.

That's why I was so excited to see this idea on a blog I like to keep up with: An Advent "Calendar" made of Books!  How brilliant is that?  Take the same books that your kids loved last christmas season, wrap them up, and open one at a time!  What a great way to keep the excitement going all month long.  Of course, we should also consider more eco-friendly options than using all that wrapping paper.  Anyone have suggestions for some sort of re-usable wrapping that might work?  Or you could re-use old wrapping paper if you're one of those who unwraps carefully enough.  Or what about a big Santa bag that a child could blindly grab one out of per day?  Hm... I've got time to figure out what works for us, huh?

It also reminds me of the habit my mom had when we were kids about bringing "presents" along on long trips.  I wish I knew where she got the idea from.  But when we'd get in the car for a road trip, her purse would always be secretly full of these little cheesy toys... each one probably worth a dollar at the local Walgreens... each one carefully wrapped.  We'd get a little too bored, too restless, or too irritating, and POOF!  Out would come a NEW TOY to be unwrapped and played with.  Small travel games, little books of riddles... whatever it was, it kept us busy for a few more minutes or hours as dad drove farther down the road.  Brilliant, if you ask me.