Keeping Christmas Well

I love the holidays.  The entire season.  It really begins November 1st, and lasts all the way to January 1st of the next year (and longer if you celebrate Epiphany, also called Three Kings Day).  I love the decorating, listening to Christmas music, cooking and baking, lighting the Advent candles, the general feeling of joy and love, the increased focus on the Savior.

I get caught up in all of it--even the stressful parts like not getting everything wrapped before Christmas Eve, trying to take in every concert, event, celebration, and expecting to bake a lot more than I'm actually able to do.  These are just a few of the things that can suck those feelings of joy and love right out of me, leaving me feeling grinchy and worn out.

This year, though, I stumbled across a page on Facebook called "The Merry Little Christmas Project".  This woman was just like me--loves the season, abhors the stress--and gathered together a community of people who want to do it better.  After reading a few posts, I decided to make my own lists of what I wanted more of this year, and what I wanted less of this year.

Here's what I came up with:

For Christmas this year, I want more:

• reading Christmas books
• candlelight
• singing carols & listening to Christmas music
• relaxing
• hot cocoa & mint tea (with cookies, preferably!)
• family time

And I want less:

• perfection
• rushing
• arguing (from the kids)
• noise
• negativity
• pointless stuff

At the end, I reminded myself to "Keep it simple--say 'no' to non-essentials!"

Every day in December, the kids ate the chocolate from their Advent calendars and we enjoyed the Victorian Christmas Advent calendar from Jacquie Lawson (if you haven't seen her e-cards and Advent calendars, you are really missing out!).  I also found a scripture writing plan for myself at Sweet Blessings that lasts the entire month of December, and it has been a wonderfully uplifting part of this month.

So how did I do?  I think I did amazingly well!  I asked my husband for help wrapping gifts early (he loves to wrap presents and does a beautiful job at it), made my Christmas cookies from mixes (yes, I did!), and pretty much hit every bullet point on my list of "more".  There was still a touch of the stuff from the list of "less", but I didn't strive for "none"--I just wanted less, and I really feel like I achieved that.

And December even included one of my girls' birthdays as well as my wedding anniversary.

What I've noticed is different this year is that in years past, I would be running pedal-to-the-metal toward "THE BIG DAY" and then skid in sideways and be ready to put it all away as soon as the sun rose on the 26th, almost a relief that it's over for another 364 days.

This year, though, now that Christmas is over and New Year's is just around the corner, I'm not quite ready to take down the tree, put away the Christmas CDs, and stop eating the cookies (I hope those never end!).  I want to savor it all a little longer.  I actually like that the gift wrap and tissue paper and non-stop deliveries from Amazon are over and I can simply enjoy the lights and decorations and music without even a hint of a deadline looming over me.  (There was even brief talk between the girls and I yesterday about leaving the tree up all year!  I don't think I'm ready for that, partially because I don't like to dust.)

And so, in the end, I guess my takeaway from this year is that I think I had the holiday season I wanted because I planned for it.  I knew what I was after, and I knew it was on me to make it happen.  Yes, there was some rushing around.  Yes, there was some stress.  But all in all, I'm happier and more laid back, and I really want to keep this up for all of 2016.

Field Trip

Today the girls and I met up with some friends at Northwest Trek.  It was chilly, but not raining when we arrived, and didn't start to rain until we were on the tram.  We saw so many animals today.  I was amazed.  Here are a few shots:

 

Reading with Lucy

Together, Lucy and I are almost finished reading Animal Farm, by George Orwell.  I remember reading it in my 7th grade English class, and at the time, I thought it was just a story about animals.  It wasn't until several years later that I finally figured out what it was really alluding to, but Lucy totally understands it right now, as we are reading.

I've been thinking about the other books I read in 7th grade, and I came to the realization that my English teacher exposed us to some of the greatest political literature out there--and most students don't read it until 11th grade, if they even read them at all.

We read Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451 and several other Ray Bradbury short stories, The Wave by Todd Strasser, as well as To Kill a Mockingbird and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.
What I appreciate now, as an adult, was the way my teacher exposed us to the material, without casting on us her own political opinions about them.  (Although, her choice in books is opinion enough, but I didn't see that at the age of 13.)  I read them before I really understood anything about the world, then they stayed in the back of my mind until all of a sudden, the underlying messages became clear to me as I grew and experienced more of life.

I want this same literary experience for all of my kids.  I know they'll be sure to get it far earlier than I did, because they're smarter than I am.

This is me complaining and wallowing...and it's not pretty. Beware, readers.

I started this blog is so that I could post about all the neat, interesting, exciting adventures our family has and things we do while our kids are growing up.  I wish I could say that the reason I don't post often is because we're so busy having these amazing adventures that I don't have time to sit and write about it because we're already off on the next one.

The truth is, I don't post often because we don't have these adventures.  My family doesn't have one single day a week that's just us all day.  My husband, who works tirelessly for our family, and for whom I am very grateful, works Monday through Friday at one job where he is gone at least 11 hours a day, and sometimes longer if traffic is backed up.  On the weekends, he usually works all day on Saturday, and after church on Sunday, if he's not working at his weekend job, he just wants to rest because he's been going, going, gone the other 6 days of the week.

I can really understand this, because sometimes I really want a break from my life too.  I homeschool our 3 children (I know it's my choice.), and I also watch my sister's children during the week while she works noon to 7:30 or so.  Most days, I love, love, love my life.  It's often hectic, but I enjoy being surrounded by these kids every day and ironically, sometimes the thing that keeps me up at night is the worry that I'm not spending enough time reading with them, talking or playing or coloring with them, and getting to know them individually.  I read about parents (and I have family members) who take their kids on dates every month.  I rarely take my girls out just by themselves; my girls don't have daddy-daughter dates.  There just isn't the time, and it fills me with incredible guilt and feelings of inadequacy as a parent.

Today, my husband took the day off from his weekend job (in fact, they gave him Sunday off as well), but he asked for the day off so he could help his mom and dad with some stuff at their house today.  No matter, because I committed to help my girls with their Girl Scout Cookies booth sales (you know, where they accost you ask you to buy a $4 box of cookies as you're leaving the store) and I'll be gone from 12-2, and again from 3:30-5:30 today.

Every Sunday, we have church.  It's only 9-12, but by the time we get home and have lunch, the day is half gone.  I teach music to the children at church, and it isn't something I can just not show up to do, and finding a substitute is fairly difficult.  On Tuesday night, while I was at church helping with the 8-11 girls' activity group, I saw a friend who wasn't there last Sunday.  I said, "Hey!  I missed seeing you guys last week at church!"  He responded, "Well, we just needed to have some family time, so we headed down to Portland for the day."

This has had me thinking that I need a family day.  I can't even remember the last time our family of 5 decided to leave it all behind for one whole day and just be together somewhere.  I have two sisters that I know are really good at making time for their families to be together.  One of them took her kids last Sunday up to the Seattle Aquarium and the Children's Museum.  They were gone for the whole day, and had a blast together.  And I know my other sister and her husband regularly take their kids to do really fun stuff on his days off.  Maybe that's the problem.  We have no days off.  Even many of the weekday evenings are taken up with other commitments.

I found a blog written by another homeschooling mom telling about their family's decision to sell most of their possessions, move into a 5th wheel, and spend a few years traveling around the country staying in RV parks.  The thought of doing something like that is exhilarating, until I think about everything and every one we would have to leave behind, and how all of us (even the people we leave behind) would have to rearrange our lives and adapt to a new normal.

Either way, I think I need a new normal (albeit not as "new" as moving into a 5th wheel! although it's still an attractive idea to me).  Today I feel bogged down, stifled, obligated, and in need of a breath of fresh air and maybe just one day of adventure with my husband and kids without worrying that we're inconveniencing someone else.

Okay, rant over.

Happy New Year!

We had a fun family New Year's Eve Party.  We went to the store and everyone picked out a treat to share.  We chose sparkling water, Cheez-Its, Peppermint M&Ms, Hershey's Kisses, Mint Kisses, Red Vines, Ring Pops, mozzarella cheese sticks, and party pizza.  Yes, I know that's 9 things, and there are only 5 people in my family.  But we were celebrating, okay?  No judging.

Ringing in the New Year...they stayed up until midnight!

On New Year's Day, we decided to take a First Day Hike.  It wasn't raining, and all of the state parks were open to the public for no fee.  We drove out to Nolte State Park near Enumclaw, and hiked around Deep Lake.  It was cold, but beautiful.  I didn't get any pictures of just Amy, but I didn't realize it until I got home and uploaded them.  There are a couple of her in here though.

This looks like a small dog to me.  Do you see it?

On the way to our hike, I asked the girls some questions about 2014.  I'll post their answers in the next couple of days.