Making the Most of the Holiday Season

It happened a few days ago. It was a strange feeling, a little unexpected but not unwelcome. My husband doesn't feel the same way, and thinks it's too early, but the kids have been feeling this for some time now. What happened? I started getting excited about Christmas!

Back in October I was following Cheri Gregory's 'A Holiday-Ready Heart'. I love her witty but poignant way of writing, and would recommend you have a look at her posts for the 31-day challenge over at The PURSEonality Challenge Blog. However, because we don't celebrate Thanksgiving (being British) the holidays seemed like a long way away back then.

Then came an invitation to celebrate Thanksgiving with some American friends, and I started thinking about what we could do to embrace the meaning of this celebration with our own children. I settled on Ann Voskamp's Thanksgiving Tree idea (you'll have to skim down to her entry for Nov 7th). Our leaves are all cut out and ready for writing on tomorrow!

And I guess once I'd decided to do that, I started remembering all the fun crafts we would be doing in December to prepare for Christmas, and that was it. I'm now thinking about where to put all the decorations this year whilst unconsciously humming 'Hark the Herald Angels' to myself.

If any of you are like us and live overseas then you've probably had to send out your 'Christmas present request list' to your families back home already. And if you're anything like us then you're resigned to the fact that most of these precious parcels will arrive in January or February anyway! Once a Christmas parcel arrived in sweltering hot June, containing a hand-knitted woolly sweater from Grandma. I put it on the baby, took a quick photo, and promptly took it off again!

So as we start getting excited about Christmas with our families, here are some things that I'm finding helpful and inspiring:

• A good place to start, if you're a perfectionist like me, is with a Christmas planner. There are some good ideas over at 'Christmas Your Way'.
• I'm really looking forward to doing Truth in the Tinsel again! It's a fun way to talk with your children about the meaning of Christmas whilst doing some simple crafts. I highly recommend buying the ebook if you haven't got it already. I've found it a good alternative to the more widely known 'Jesse Tree' idea, which just seemed a bit too much for my preschoolers.
• We're also looking forward to making our advent wreath again and lighting a candle every Sunday whilst reading some Scripture as a family together. There are different ways of doing this, but here's one link that explains what the wreath is. The first Sunday of Advent is the 2nd of December, so we need to have our wreath ready by then.
• Christmas music of course is a must! We have a CD of children's Christmas songs, and a more classical 'Carols from King's College, Cambridge' which we love. This year I'm looking forward to buying Kari Jobe's Bethlehem album.  I bought her two other albums while we were in England earlier this year, and I just love her voice, her lyrics and her music!
• Finally, I'm looking forward to joining in with the Christmas Bible study over at Good Morning Girls to prepare my own heart for the Christmas season. It starts on 26th November, so go and get subcribed if you haven't already!

Qu: What special things are you planning to do with your family this Christmas?

Qu: What special family traditions do you have around this upcoming holiday season?

Qu: How do you manage to keep Christmas meaningful amidst all the stress and commercialism?

I'd love to hear what helps and inspires you!

Abide in Him!

Linking up here:



Photo Credit:
small candle - freedigitalphotos.net/ graur razuan ionut
star ornament - freedigitalphotos.net/ suat eman

Finding Balance in the Christmas Season

The Christmas season is upon us! It took me a bit by surprise, with the first Sunday of Advent starting in November, but tonight I sat down and did some planning and am hoping that it'll be a fun and meaningful time for all of us.

Lots of the blogs I follow have already written about resources and tips for the festive season. Sometimes when I read them I do get a bit discouraged by how much time, energy and creativity everyone else must have apart from me. Then I remembered a verse from my Abiding Fruit Bible study that I'm doing this week with the Maximise Your Mornings challenge:

" Each of you should test your own actions. Then you can take pride in yourself, without comparing yourself to somebody else, for each of you should carry your own load." Galatians 6 v 4,5

It's hard not to compare yourselves with others, but everyone's situation is different, and everyone's stress tolerance levels are different. Here are some things to think about:

Stage of life: Perhaps some of us have very small children still, and a lot of energy is sapped in changing nappies or potty training or feeding or just mopping up messes and soothing grazed knees.
Situation: If you're like me, then you live in a foreign country far away from family. Often that means that just living daily life is more challenging and time consuming. Meals have to be made from scratch, craft materials are hard to come by, Grandma is not around the corner to help with the kids while you go shopping.
Character: Some of us are more energetic and social than others. I know for myself that, although I'd love to entertain more regularly, having guests round more than once every two weeks makes me exhausted and throws me off my schedule.
Health: Perhaps some of us have some health issues that drain our energy and make us want to retreat and sleep more.

The verses from Galatians encouraged me to stop looking at (and envying) other homeschooling mothers and just work out a happy balance in my own life that I can cope with. When the children are older hopefully we can do more things, but right now I'm in a season of life where I have to protect my energy levels.

So what are we doing for the advent season this year?
1) Advent calendars - we can't buy these here, but some friends in Germany sent us one each for the children. They love opening the doors and counting down the days.

Candle Ornaments from Truth in the Tinsel

2) Christmas crafts - I bought the amazing ebook Truth in the Tinsel, and am hoping to work my way through most of these daily projects with the children. Here's our first one from today:
3) Advent candles - we have an advent wreath, and each Sunday we light the next candle and Dh reads a relevant passage from the Bible and we talk about some aspect of Christmas.
4) Carols and mulled wine - I'm sad that we can't buy mince pies or mincemeat here, but I did bring some mulled wine sachets back from England for our now annual Carols and mulled wine evening. Some time this month we'll invite several expat families round and enjoy fellowship together whilst singing Christmas carols at the piano and taking turns to read Christmas-related Bible passages.
5) Festive spirit - the children are looking forward to helping me decorate the house this weekend, and yesterday I put on a CD of Christmas children's music and we all danced around the room.

I hope you all have a fun and meaningful advent season in your homes this year :-)

Handicrafts

"Again we know that the human hand hand is a wonderful and exquisite instrument to be used in a hundred movements exacting delicacy, direction and force; every such movement is a cause of joy as it leads to the pleasure of execution and the triumph of success. We begin to understand this and make some efforts to train the young in the deft handling of tools and the practice of handicrafts. Some day perhaps, we shall see apprenticeship to trades revived and good and beautiful work enforced." Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 Philosophy of Education, p. 328.

Having three little ones six and under, I've discovered a creative side to me I never knew I had. When I planned and organised our new schoolroom I had great fun sorting out all the craft materials into labelled boxes for easy access in our new 'craft cupboard'. Being a perfectionist, my great temptation is to take over too much to make sure that our creations look brilliant with minimal drips and spills and stains. Anyway, I thought I'd share some of the the things we've been doing recently......

Caterpillar Craft

It's great to have a few craft books on hand with ideas of some fun projects to do with preschoolers. Sophie and Charis had fun making these caterpillars. They especially love gluing shiny, sparkly things onto their pictures.

Valentine's Day cards

OK, so I know Valentine's Day was a while ago, but here are the cards we made for each other. The girls love making cards to give to other people, and I try to get them to make the birthday and Christmas cards we send to our family too. It saves money, is more fun, and hopefully is more interesting to receive!

Cake Making

Charis loves to help me in the kitchen. I'm getting better at stepping back a bit and allowing the inevitable mess and imperfection that ensues, since I know the process is more important than the end result. Sophie is not so keen, but does enjoy licking the bowl at the end. I usually use vegan recipes so there are no raw eggs in the mixture.

Painting

The girls love to draw pictures and to paint, but in the interests of encouraging handicrafts I was on the look out for some different kinds of painting projects when I came across these Russian dolls. They came in sets of 3 blank dolls ready for the child to paint their own.

Weaving Loom

I got this basic weaving loom for Sophie. It's a bit tricky for her, and she needs a little help, but she's surprisingly motivated to add one new colour each time and is looking forward to having a little homemade rug for her dollies. I like that it's introducing her to the process of how actual rugs and carpets are made.

Cross-Stitch

Finally, I felt that I should be setting a good example, so I took up a new handicraft myself. I started my first cross-stitch project (which I've now finished and framed). It was a lot of fun, and very relaxing to sit and do something with my hands in the evenings or in our 'quiet hour'. The girls were interested to see how it developed.