//embrace the ordinary vol. 3: christmas dreams and christmas realities//

//

"There's so much I have to get done before Christmas!"

I've said it. And you probably have too.  I really do not like that the weeks, especially the days, leading up to Christmas are so busy. But I get stuck in the muck every year. I want to get ALL THE THINGS done before Christmas. I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to do all the baking/gift wrapping/decorating/party planning, but why? Is it going to help me more fully celebrate the season? Or is it just that my own ego wants to have the pinterest-perfect Christmas I see splattered all over every social media platform? Breaking my back to have the "perfect Christmas" isn't worth it if it means I turn into a Grinch making myself and my family miserable. So these last couple of days before Christmas I'm just going to let the to-do list slide. If it happens, great! If not, Christmas will still happen. 

Here's all the things I wanted to do, and what will actually get done. 

Christmas Baking.  The goal was to have enough home made goods to bring a giant cookie platter to each family gathering and a few smaller ones to some friends' homes. So far I have made a couple batches of some no-bake type cookies, (my mama-self loves those!!) and I'm in the process of making rolled sugar cookies.  It's been going on for over a week.  Last week I made the dough and it sat in fridge for 5 days. On Saturday I rolled them out and baked them. And now they are waiting to be decorated. This is the part I used to love and now can't stand. Would someone like to come decorate my cookies for me? There are two other cookies I wanted to make. Maybe for New Years?

Christmas Shopping. I *think* I'm done! But that only happened  a few days ago.  I really admire people who get their Christmas shopping done before advent even starts. I'm going to try to do that next year. 

Gift Wrapping. I love to have presents wrapped and under the tree early, like a couple weeks before Christmas. It looks pretty and I love the anticipation. As of two hours ago I hadn't done any wrapping.  Then Johnny and I did a few before he went down for a nap and I'm hoping between Alex and me we can get it all done tonight. 

The first Christmas Alex and I were married I saved ALL the gift wrapping until Christmas Eve.  We both worked until 3 then had to get home, get showered, and wrap gifts for not just each other but all of our family and get to church by 4:30.  There were words and tears and it was the worst. I vowed on that day that I would never again procrastinate on gift wrapping. And I haven't. But I'm cutting it a little close this year.

Christmas Cards. I started off so on top of cards this year.  I had them ordered and stamps purchased by the end of November. The cards arrived, and then they sat in their box for three weeks. Alex and I started to address them a couple nights ago. I took one batch to the PO this morning. If we finish the gift wrapping tonight we may get to the cards.  Or you may be getting your card from us in the new year.

Handmade Gifts. Because I'm crazy and love bringing stress into my life I decided it would be a good idea to make a gift for every member of my family. Once I got the idea in my head I was obsessed with it and couldn't get it out. I have 3 gifts done. And two days to make four more.

  

So much yarn, so little time. 

Advent Reflecting. I try to read a book or do some extra reflective thing each advent to try to combat the exact kind of planning-and-doing frenzy that I have worked myself into this year. My goal was to do the scripture readings and spend some time writing in my Blessed Is She journal every day during Advent, and oh, there are so many empty pages in that journal. 

This is where I feel my deficiencies and frustrations the most. Advent is such a holy time of year with all its waiting and mystery and darkness, and I squander it on the flashy, the transitory, and the materialistic.  I don't mean to poo-poo our Christmas traditions, they are fun and if done right can be a means for spreading so much love. But this year they were kind of becoming an end in and of themselves.  

Thankfully the Lord extends His mercy at all times to all people. I still have time to contemplate the Incarnation. Christmas will still come with all it's joy and glory regardless of how many cookies I baked or cards I sent out. Jesus will still come into my heart again, and so I'm just going to sit back and enjoy that fact. 

Have a Merry Christmas! 

linking up with Gina at Someday Saints for Embrace the Ordinary

//

keep in touch! 

email:     

    

// 31. after dinner walks //

//

"After dinner sit awhile, after supper walk a mile."  

-   English Proverb

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”

-   Ralph Waldo Emerson

I can hardly believe that we're at the end of 31 days of blogging!  I will close out this series by sharing with you a very beloved family tradition- the After Dinner Walk. 

Sometimes you finish dinner, and you're not quite ready for dessert. You've got to stretch the legs, get the digestion going a little, work up a second wind of an appetite before dessert and coffee are served. It's times like these that call for an after dinner walk. 

We don't walk after every meal.  And not everyone is obliged to come. When Alex first joined our family I don't think he quite understood the after dinner walk, and often opted to stay behind. But he's come around to them more recently and usually joins us. It's especially nice to take a walk after dinner if the weather is particularly fine. Winter walks are not as popular, but if we're feeling brave we'll go.  We always walk after dinner on Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

Everyone get their coats and shoes, my dad puts the dog on a leash. In the summer we can look for golf balls that have been shot over the fence of the near by golf course.  In the winter my brother often brings a pipe. Sometimes we all walk in a straight line, taking up the entire street. Other times people pair up, some walking briskly ahead, while others fall behind admiring a house or a garden. Then we all come home, put the coffee on, and have dessert. It's always the prefect way to end a good meal together. 

And just like that, 31 days of blogging comes to a close. 

The most important learning is done in the home, and I've learned so many things in the home my parents made over the years. Now they're being taught in the home Alex and I are making together. I hope you've enjoyed reading about them. And perhaps you've learned something in the process as well. 

Thank you for reading.  I am looking forward to NOT posting anything tomorrow!

//

This post is a part of:

Want to keep up with this blog? Be sure to subscribe!

Enter your email address:

or follow me on feedly   

or on bloglovin'. 

// 29. take the scenic route //

//

Sometimes, when you're going somewhere, you have the option to take the fastest route, or the scenic route.  You can take the highway, or you can go around the lake, or along the river. My family has always been in favor of taking the scenic route.  This usually happened on the way home from church. We'd pile in the van and my dad would say something like, "well, should we take the scenic route?" And there would be various amounts of yeas and nays depending on who was hungry or not. 

We also like to take scenic routes along Summit Ave or around the Lakes in Minneapolis to look at all the cool old houses.  Every year on Christmas Eve, on our way home from church, we would take the scenic route along Summit to look at Christmas lights. Alex and I have our own version of a Christmas Eve scenic route that has been expanded to include driving through downtown St. Paul to see the lights in Rice Park. I confess that the first time it happened by accident, but now it's tradition!

//

This post is a part of:

Want to keep up with this series? Be sure to subscribe!

Enter your email address:

or follow me on feedly   

or on bloglovin'. 

// 23. breakfast in bed //

//

Have you ever gotten breakfast in bed? I hope so. It's a wonderful thing to be given breakfast in bed.

My family has a breakfast in bed tradition that started first on just Mother's Day and Father's Day, but at some point was extended to included all birthdays too.  The thing that was so great about our tradition was that it was supposed to be a surprise, but because we did every year for everyone's birthday you always new it was coming. 

Everyone except the special person wakes up extra early (7:00, oh my!) and gets his or her favorite breakfast items together. For my dad it's fruit and a small amount of a pastry or muffin.  My mom likes blueberry scones. For us kids it was always our favorite kind of cereal. Can you say Lucky Charms? Or Cinnamon Toast Crunch?  It was carefully arranged on the breakfast tray, which we've had forever and use only for breakfast in bed, along with enough breakfast items for everyone else to have something (because we all wanted breakfast), and we'd begin what was supposed to be a quiet procession to just outside the special person's bedroom door. It was in fact a very loud procession. I remember every birthday very clearly hearing every one getting ready to "surprise" me while I just waited in bed pretending to be asleep. Then the door swings open and everyone starts singing Happy Birthday to You, complete with four part harmonies. After the singing everyone would pile on the bed and my parents would tell the story of what happened on the day we were born.

This is our breakfast in bed tray.

One year, when I was a very mean 9-year-old I told my 5-year-old sister on the eve of her birthday that we weren't going to give her a breakfast in bed. I said I had talk about with mom and dad and we decided we were going to skip it that year. She accused me a lying and went to bed very angry at me.  The next morning we got up and were of course getting her breakfast ready, but we were running very behind schedule.  She in the meantime had woken up and was lying in her bed waiting for us, but we didn't come and we didn't come, and of course when you're 5 years old ten minutes feels like an hour. So she thought we really weren't giving breakfast in bed. When we finally did make it to her room, singing the birthday song, she lifted her tear stained face from her pillow, outed me as the terrible big sister that I was, and I was swiftly and justly punished. The lesson is thus: don't mess around with breakfast in bed.

When I moved out of my parents house I decided I wasn't ready to give up my birthday breakfast in bed.  So I instituted the tradition in our own little family.  We have our own tray, and we do breakfast in bed on birthdays, Mother's Day, and Father's Day. Johnny gets breakfast in bed everyday. 

//

This post is a part of:

Want to keep up with this series? Be sure to subscribe!

Enter your email address:

or follow me on feedly   

or on bloglovin'. 

Traditions

Christmas Eve Mass. Familiar songs and great anticipation. 

Presents with Alex's family.

Johnny was infinitely more interested in the bows and wrapping paper than any actual gifts.

The evening went much later than Johnny is accustomed to, so he ended up asleep under the tree. 

Christmas morning as a family of three.  This is a tradition I'm really looking forward to. Our own family, our own home, our own tree and gifts and stockings and coffee mugs.

Later on Christmas morning we spend time with my family.

Breakfast mimosas and many cookies and baked treats

A tradition that is only a few years old, but a favorite for many, is a time a sharing before gifts.  Poems, stories, songs.  This years selections consisted of a few scripture readings, the Christmas Truce of 1914, a piano reflection, a history of the carol "What Child is This?" and a lesson on why it was so outrageous that shepherd's were among the first to hear glad tidings of the Christ.

Presents followed by a lazy afternoon of napping followed by a crisp Christmas walk and a Christmas bowl.

The evening ends with the traditional pot pie meal at Alex's parents home.  Twenty people cram around the dining room table for one of our favorite meals of the entire year.

It was a beautiful Christmas filled with family and all our traditions. It's exciting to me to know that in just a few years all these traditions will be things that Johnny loves and looks forward to. He'll talk about them throughout the year and remember how it was the year before. And as our family grows we will make more traditions of our own. And they will become the things we look forward to.