With four kids old enough to have opinions on celebrating Christmas, but with no money tree, we asked each of our kids to pick ONE thing they absolutely wanted to do to celebrate this Christmas. At the very least we could grant them their number one wish. Here's what they came up with....
- Christina asked for the Trader Joe's chocolate advent calendar. The kids all agreed and come to find out, part of that tradition involves finding a good hiding spot for your calendar, away from certain little hands. The calendars were bought, handed out, and devoured in a flash. There is definitely room for improvement with that tradition! I've got a project up my sleeve for next year's advent. It omits chocolate, but there is more than enough of that going around in December, so I hope that aspect isn't missed.
- Thomas chose an outing to Hebert's Candy Mansion.
- Grace wanted to decorate the house! I asked what she meant by decorate the whole house, and Grace said, "Cover every single wall with a picture!" We certainly fell short, but we did all right....
- Caroline asked to bake gingerbread cookies.
Having the kids pick one activity each made this Christmas fun for them and for Wayne and I. It was nice to know that we each contributed to our month of celebration, and the ideas weren't all mine. The other benefit was that it helped keep cost under control since there was a mutual understanding of limited choices, and there was no pressure to do more or spend more than the choices the kids made. We added the kids' choices to a few non-negotiable family traditions, and everyone was happy. We'll make it our "Christmas Top 5" tradition next year since Wesley will be able to speak his mind and offer a request as well. This year he simply enjoyed the festivities with the rest of us.
I've got a couple more Christmas posts to come, I've simply been enjoying Wayne's vacation time & lots of family time {OK, there was a little Christmas cramming & napping too}. Seriously though, it's been wonderful!
Best Wishes to YOU!
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3 comments:
Thanks for another yummy looking recipe, I hope I haven't lost it by next year. I was wondering what you have been up to, Missy! I love your idea for Christmas and I plan on adopting that next year with my 5. Were they family activities? Individually done with Mom or Dad? So many questions...
Julie, Since this is the first year of our Top 4, I was pretty flexible. There weren't a lot of conditions such as "it has to include the whole family." We did Caroline's, just me and her, while the big kids and Wayne went to a wedding reception and Wes was in bed. I left some dough for the other kids to make their cookies later. The kids got to choose to stay home and bake with me and Caroline or go to the party. The other 3 choices involved the whole family, mostly by choice. For Grace's I let the kids take kid-friendly decorations to their rooms to set on their dressers and nightstands and invited the other kids to make paper snowflakes with us when I worked on them with Grace, but they weren't forced to help.
So, in a big nutshell...this is a tradition in the making, and I'm flexible in order to make sure that the kids' choices for celebrating are worthwhile to them, and there isn't drudgery in our activities. So far, so good.
I love the idea of a 'top 6' at our house. Part of the reason it was so buzzin' around here for the whole month was because we were trying to fit it all in for traditions sake. Great idea!
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