Christmas Traditions and Decor

Today as it was snowing, I thought it to be the perfect time to share some of our Christmas traditions and decorations! Especially at Christmas time, we love to make our home a bright and beautiful place! Each year (even when we're not all in the same house) we all get together to choose our Christmas tree. It's a wonderful way to begin the Christmas season. The search for the "perfect" evergreen begins at a local tree farm. We search rows and rows before we choose the perfect specimen, while the boys intermittenly throw football. This year was particularly fun because Levi was able to enjoy the experience with the rest of us! I just love making family memories! On the hayride to our favorite spot!

Daddy showing Levi the needles and pinecones

Levi found his favorite tree!

Brittney and me standing by while the tree is cut down

Papi with the tree!

When we return home, we set up the Christmas tree and the ladies begin decorating while the men put up Christmas lights outside. I love how Christmas decorations create a beautiful glow in our home.

We love to use a lot of red in our tree to sybolize the blood of Jesus

Nana's Advent Calendar! Each date is made of a canning lid, scrapbook paper, and stickers.

On the back side of each date is one of the names of Jesus. We'll flip the date each day.


This is the "fun" area, Levi's favorite place to be!


Levi made a handprint ornament for each grandparent and great-grandparent!

While the snow was falling and I was snapping pictures, the finches came to visit!

What are some of your favorite ways to represent Christ in your Christmas decorations?

Teach Me Tuesdays

Advent Calendars and Keeping Christ in CHRISTmas

My family and I have been exploring ways to keep Christ the center of our Christmas celebration. Now that I have a child (soon to be children) of my own, I have been trying to be especially deliberate in placing the Christmas "magnifying glass" where it is meant to be.

As a child, it can be difficult to remove the gift fog that seems to blur the birth of our Savior. One thing my husband and I have decided to do to lift this fog is to give our children only three gifts at Christmas. This year, our son will be receiving a small play center, a set of Bible-based children's books, and a puzzle-type-thing that has several different latches. Starting next year, when he is two, Levi will choose three of his own toys to give to a child in need, assuming we can find a family in our community who will accept used toys. If not, he will donate his toys to a missions thrift shop nearby.

Another way we are deliberately keeping Christ in Christmas is by following an Advent Calendar, leading up to the day we celebrate His birth. I have made two calendars, and my mom will soon be completing one as well. (I'll try to post her completed project soon).

I found instructions to the first calendar on this site.

It's made of 24 matchboxes hot-glued together, with touches of scrapbook paper and sticker embellishments. I am very pleased with the quaint, wintry look of it, but I'm not sure if it will hold up through years of being packed away, since the matchboxes aren't very durable. I picked up the second calendar at Hobby Lobby in the Christmas craft section. It was plain cardboard, so I also bought red and green paint, white number stickers, and Christmas theme stickers. Everything was 50% off and I love how cute this turned out, especially for the low cost!

This will be the Advent Calendar we use with our kiddos. In each box, I placed either a name of Jesus, prophecy scriptures, or Gospel verses about Jesus' birth. Each day that has a name of Jesus in the box we will share a way that Jesus exemplifies that aspect of His being. For example, for Lamb of God, we will explain why Jesus is called the Lamb of God. For each day that has a scripture in the box we will look up the verse, read it, and discuss it.I am so excited to incorporate these ideas into our Christmas traditions to help us remember that Jesus is the true reason for celebration!

How about you? Are there any traditions your family has developed to help keep Christ at the center of Christmas?

Teach Me Tuesdays

Blueberry Muffins

I absolutely love to bake this time of year...probably too much! This evening I threw together some blueberry muffins from a Betty Crocker recipe I'd never used. The results are quite tasty and will be a nice breakfast for us at home in the morning, and also for the men who frequently eat on their way to work!

Recipe
1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/3 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg, beaten
3/4 c. milk
1/4 c. cooking oil
3/4 c. fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin pan or use paper baking cups. In medium bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl combine egg, milk, and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir until just moistened. Fold in berries. Fill muffin cups two-thirds full with mixture. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes on wire rack. Serve warm with butter or margarine.

Next time, to add some extra flavor, I think I'll exchange the milk for buttermilk and oil for butter.
Hopefully we'll have enough left over for breakfast!

Jessica

We Are Thankful: Our Thankful Tree

While it is true that we should ceaslessly give thanks to the LORD throughout the year, it is wonderful to set time aside to refocus and reflect on everything for which we have to be thankful. This year for Thanksgiving (and the weeks leading up to it), we decided to do something special to highlight the many reasons we are greatful to God.

Enter "The Thankful Tree."

Yesterday, while the temperature was much warmer than today's delightful 50 degrees, we found two branches that had the perfect height, width, and overall appearance. This was surprinsingly more difficult than we anticipated! We brought in our branches and placed them in a vase weighed down with small stones. Scrapbook paper leftover from homemade wedding invitations was great for our "thankful notes." We simply cut it into squares, hole punched the top, and tied the ribbon through. Now all that's left to do is decorate each branch with thanks.

Our number one reason to be always thankful was the first on the tree: Perfect salvation through Jesus Christ

I'm excited to see all the things for which my family is thankful appear on the tree!

In our home, Thanksgiving is one of our most cherished holidays! (Especially for my Dad--also known as Papi) And since we're ALL together in the same house this year, we took great joy in decorating! Our favorite decor pieces are the floral arrangements that we used at my wedding almost two years ago. Yes, I will have been married to the man of my dreams for two years on November 28!

Oh, and I just love flipping this calendar over to the next month to see the beautiful scenery! Although we don't typically have Novembers that look like this in southern Indiana, it makes me smile with anticipation for the months ahead!

"Oh come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to him with psalms. For the LORD is the great God, and the great King above all gods... Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our Maker." -Psalm 95:1-3, 6