Since we couldn't fit all of our Christmas gifts into our luggage for our trip to Finland, we opened presents at home a few days before we left.
Micah's big present of this year was a neat wooden play kitchen that includes a fridge, oven, and sink. This is perfect for her right now because she is very into pretending with food and dishes. I'm glad she has this to play with now because I was tired of her getting into the cupboard of real dishes to feed her baby.
One thing I heard about at my MOPS meeting (Mothers of Preschoolers) to keep the Christmas focus on Jesus and not the presents was to give smaller gifts at Christmas time and save the larger gifts for birthdays. I thought that was a great idea that we will be implementing next year. But for this year, we had already purchased Micah's kitchen and could only hide it in the extra bathtub for so long!
Levi seemed to enjoy his first Christmas - of course being more interested in the wrapping than the gifts. Micah had a keen interest in Levi's gifts so this year's unwrapping provided for many lessons on sharing. No, Micah, every present is not yours! To help her pass out the gifts, we made labels with our pictures on them to put on the gifts. She still loves playing with Levi's toys and is good about giving him an alternate toy to play with but she's in for a big surprise when he is not always going to be happy with that and starts to fight back for his toys! Makes me wonder what my brother went through after I came along! Ah, sweet childhood memories!
Speaking of memories...now that we have a child that is old enough to understand, I've been really focusing this year on starting new traditions and continuing old ones from my childhood with Micah and Levi. Some of the new traditions are:
- Jesus' birthday cake (red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting - only made at Christmas)
- Making homemade ornaments for the tree
- Reading the Christmas story from the Bible on Christmas (including acting it out with the Little People seen above)
- Nativity picture of our family (still to be done - check back soon for picture)
- Felt handprint cutout every year
- Smaller gifts at Christmas to focus more on Jesus (to be started next year) (Don't forget, future Beth.)
Some of the traditions from my childhood that I want to continue with Micah and Levi:
- Adding days to the felt advent calendar made by my mom. (She used to put daily activities into each pocket and my brother and I had to take turns pulling out the pieces each day and not peek into the days ahead!)
- Butter tree (Family secret as to how it is made)
- Advent candles for each "Friday" of advent ;)
- Special ornament for each child
- Making and frosting sugar cookies (James' tradition)
- I'm sure there is more that I am forgetting but this list is a start...maybe I will be able to add pictures of each tradition sometime soon...
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