Christmas Traditions: Family Time

"Children spell love t-i-m-e" ~ Dr. Anthony P. Witham

Our regular lives are busy but the holidays make things even busier! Even though our kids have vacation time and are home with us, it doesn’t automatically mean we are all together. In a big family with big age gaps like ours, we have to be very intentional about family time or we won’t be able to do special things and create lasting memories. After we had our son Lucas, a wise dad reminded Jesse that he only has 18 summer with him and to make them count! Doesn’t that sound really, really short! Well, the same is true about Christmases! When our kids are away at college or are grown and have their own families, we won’t be able to plan their holiday vacations and their childhood memories will already be set. So, now is the time for that!

To make our holidays personal and special to our family, we have a couple traditions:
We celebrate Advent as a family. We read Jotham’s Journey every night during the Advent season. We buy each kid a little Trader Joe’s Advent calendar and they get a piece of chocolate for the story plus various other treats over the season (pomegranates, hot coco, Carmel popcorn-whatever. Stuff they don’t ever get before bedtime!)

Family Adventures. These are times we just pack up as a family and go on an “adventure”. Big or small, these are outings, trips, places we wouldn’t normally go or things that aren’t available all year. We've been blessed a few times with free vacation houses to borrow, too! We rarely tell the kids in advance so it’s just a spontaneous adventure to them. Past adventures include: sledding, Christmas light drives, out at the mall for treats, going to downtown Seattle to ride the carousal, a couple of days to vacation in Lake Chelan, boat rides, etc. This year, some of our family adventures will include driving to Julian for apple pie and looking for cool Christmas light displays, walking up to Starbucks for breakfast, going to Knott’s Berry Farm, going to the beach at night to drink hot coco and look at the stars, having a sleep over at their cousins' house, a Big Bear trip…But SHHH!-they’re still surprises to the kids! :)
Here are some pictures of previous adventures....

Sledding in 2006

Lake Chelan in 2007

San Diego Wild Animal Park in 2008 (Ava was there, too!)

Time with Extended family. The Holidays are a great time to see the WHOLE family. Some of my favorite memories from childhood Christmases are wrapped up in my big, extended family. Playing games, eating cookies, making my cousins perform Christmas plays! haha! We have spent 8 out of the last 9 Christmases in WA with Jesse’s family and those memories are so precious. Last year was the first time we were with my family for Christmas in 10 years! Now that we live in SD we’ll be able to make new memories with them. Every Sunday before Christmas is the celebration at my Grandma’s house with aunts, uncles, cousins. A grandchild, actually now it’s a great-grandchild!, puts baby Jesus in the manger and my Grandpa reads the birth story from Matthew while everyone sits around him in the living room. I hope my kids and their cousins will grow up putting on Christmas plays for the adults and carry on the tradition!

What are special things you do as a family at Christmas?