When Christmas Comes To Town

Christmastime is crazy. Since Jaysen and I got married we have made sure to share the holiday with both of our families. Every other year we are with his family and vice versa. On the years that it is my families turn, we go to my Grandma's house. Ever since I can remember my family has gone to her house for Christmas Eve. She has always made it such a huge event and takes no shortcuts when it comes to making sure it is a fabulous evening for everyone. In fact, as the family has gotten larger and larger {her kids, grandkids, and great grandkids} the family room was made bigger in order to accomodate everyone.



Santa Claus comes every year so that the kids can get in their last minute requests. We eat until we are so full we can't move. We sing carols. We play the bells. We learn about the true meaning of Christmas. It has been this way forever. Traditions are a part of what make the holiday so great.


About eight years ago a few of the traditions were changed as the families grew. Instead of going to my Grandma's house again on Christmas morning to open presents, we open them on Christmas Eve. This is done at the end of the evening. My grandparents pass out gifts to EVERYONE. {That's a lot of gifts!} They love to give these gifts and give them from their hearts. I appreciate them and all they do for their family. There's a lot of us and I know it takes months of work for them to cross everyone off of their list.

This year we are spending the holiday with my husbands family. I am new to their traditions but have found that no matter what activities take place, all that matters is that we are able to spend the holiday with family. This mean that this year we will be eating pizza from the favorite local pizza place. We read the Christmas story. We play fun games. We exchange ornaments and the kids open up their pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa. The opening of the pajama boxes is almost like an unveiling ceremony. The kids get so excited to see what their new jammies will look like each year. And every year as we put up our Christmas tree we get to reflect on the ornaments of Christmas' past that we have received from Jaysen's siblings. I have come to love and appreciate these traditions of his family and look forward to them every year.


The past few years I have struggled with the overwhelming amount of gifts that my kids receive every year. Not only do they get presents from me and Santa, but from cousins and grandparents too. My daughter receives presents from four sets of grandparents. My son...wow. His birthday is this month as well so he is in present heaven. To top off that...he has two sets of parents and six sets of grandparents that give him presents {that I know of}. Yeah....I don't know if he even knows what he gets every year because there is so much. Now, I'm not saying that grandparents and cousins can't give gifts to my kids. In fact, my kids give gifts to their grandparents and their cousins themselves. It is just disheartening to see my kids simply looking for the next gift to unwrap. What is interesting though, is that the gifts that have had a lasting effect on my kids have never been the toys. Even so.....

I worry that my kids don't grasp the true meaning of Christmas.



I worry that the commercialism of the holiday is all they remember.


I worry that they will grow up and the only traditions they can look back on are opening presents.

I have been struggling with this for a few years now. There are so many other kids that receive little or nothing for Christmas. If you have seen the movie, The Polar Express, you will remember the adorable little boy who doesn't believe in Santa because he's never gotten a present from him. His family was too poor. And then there's my kids who have never wanted for anything. Am I the only one struggling with this? I worry that I have enabled my children to have this cushioned view of life.

I have tried to reign things in this year. After seeing the piles of presents that my kids opened, I told myself that was it. I wasn't going to do it again this year. Their presents are bought and I am done. I wanted to focus this year on teaching my kids the true meaning of Christmas. I want to take them caroling to the nursing home. I want to have them take presents to those who would otherwise go without. I want them to learn about the reason we give gifts in the first place.


I told them yesterday that we were going to be giving presents to baby Jesus this year because it is his birth we celebrate. Trying to keep things on my toddler's level I told them that we were going to have a birthday party for Jesus. The Wise Men took him presents to celebrate his birth and we have been told to give to others to honor His life. Not necessarily materialistic things, but of ourselves as well.

If any of you have other ideas that would help me to continue to keep the true meaning of Christmas as a theme for my family this year I would love to hear them. One aspect of Christmas that is identical no matter where we go to spend the holiday is that the story of the birth of Jesus is told. I grew up playing characters from this story as me and my cousins acted out the scenes. I am so grateful that my grandmother has kept this tradition alive. I love her so much for all of the time she puts into every Christmas Eve. She is 76 years old this year and I worry there won't be too many more years of her Christmas programs.

Sorry for the ramblings here....I've been frustrated over a few aspects of Christmas this year and needed to ramble on a bit. :0) Thanks for listening.

Christmas baking

It's a yearly tradition at my house. One big day of making Christmas goodies to share with friends and family. This year I was alone, sadly. Every other year I've had my little sister doing it with me. There have been years where others have participated as well, but she was always there. So, it was sad to not have her here to do this with me. She moved this last summer up to Nampa. I did call her as I was working on the goodies to find that she was doing the same thing! Making Christmas goodies...by herself. Apparently we were still on the same page. :)

This year I went with the super easy. Without the extra hands to help (Landon wasn't even here to help!) I tried to find things I could make that wouldn't take days to finish. Actually, every year I try to find something new and different that I haven't made before. It's fun finding the new recipes and ideas. I've made homemade Twix bars using Christmas cookie cutters, Nutter Butter Santas, Eggnog Truffles....you get the idea. But EVERY year we make pb cups and pb Ritz sandwich crackers dipped in chocolate. It's just what we do. But, those take some serious time. Making the pb Ritz sandwiches and then dipping....and the cups take a bit too. A dollup of chocolate, dollup of pb, final dollup of chocolate. Sigh. Needless to say, this year was truly a sad year in the goodie department. I did come up with some really great ideas with the help of the internet :0) so I thought I'd share!

These were truly easy. Just unwrap some caramels, dip them in chocolate and sprinkle with your desired topping. I used whatever I had in my cupboard. Nuts, sprinkles, coconut, pb chips...you get the idea. Whatever tastes good in a candy bar with caramel...go for it! Even crushed pretzels would go great on it. Or, if you've got the time and patience...you could wait for the chocolate to dry and use a colored frosting and make cool designs on the top. Swirls, zig zags, stuff like that.

These did take a little more time as the dough has to refrigerate for an hour, and then with the cutting out of the shapes, and several trays of cookies to bake.....you get the idea. I'm not a cookie baker, but these did go really quick. I used mini cookie cutters, so these are bite sized, which means I could bake 20 cookies per sheet, 10 minutes per batch...it wasn't too bad. After baking, I dipped half of them in colored chocolate and sprinkled the chocolate with the same color of sugar sprinkles. My daughter ate three all at once. Apparently that means they are good. OH! And they are gingerbread cookies. Not sugar cookies.

This one was the easiest by far. I have made peppermint bark in the past. But this one is my favorite so far...just melt chocolate in your double boiler, spread on parchment paper on a cookie sheet to desired thickness, and then sprinkle with those yummy Andes peppermint chips. The chips actually have itty bitty pieces of candy cane in them. So, there's still a small amount of crunch, but you still get tons of peppermint flavor. The only thing I would change is maybe using semisweet chips for the bark part instead of milk chocolate. I'm a dark chocolate girl. I would eat it up!

And, this is something that I try to make every year. My mom got these chocolate molds FOREVER ago. I don't know how long ago...but they've been around for a while. I borrowed them from her several years back, and have just kept using them. It's a full Nativity. I definitely use white chocolate as you wouldn't get the same effect using brown. I made four sets yesterday. They aren't quite done as I need to shave the excess off of the sides. I've just got the pieces laid out on parchment paper right now as you can see. But just look at the pieces! The molds actually have the mold for the stable as well, but I usually don't make that part, as I put all of the pieces in a cellophane bag and wrap it with a pretty ribbon. These I give out to those I visit teach, or those who Jaysen home teaches. I think what I love so much about these, is that my mom has a Nativity set she made out of porcelain a LONG time ago that she puts out every Christmas that is identical to these chocolate pieces. I was lucky enough to find an identical set of the porcelain Nativity this year at the CSI craft fair. It's truly beautiful. Unfortunately, it's not displayed this year for fear that Mackenzee will break the fragile pieces. But, my mom will have hers out...as always.