Merry Christmas (on Boxing Day...)

This is a little late, but I have been soaking up all the holiday goodness this year. Last year, Christmas day was a blur in the preparation for our trans-Atlantic move. This year, I have been savoring every move-less moment. We've made Christmas cookies, and had fires in our living room woodstove (courtesy of my husband with slightly pyromaniacal tendencies...) We've made lots of crafts, hosted a Christmas craft party for our home ed friends, and made presents. We went to a home ed nativity in Cheltenham. Justin was a date palm and Rebecca a donkey (closest thing to a horse...) We cut out snowflakes, read Christmas stories, and opened our advent calendar. (I filled the advent calendar with a hand-sewn felt nativity scene. That was an awesome idea, but better to have it sometime in October than in late November like I did. I had to sew every night to keep up! But now I have it for years to come!)

My mom came a few days before Christmas, and we have hiked and shopped and played. We baked potica (that's not really potica, apparently...)

This year, for Christmas, we made an effort to limit the number of "things." Smaller-sized European houses combined with our recent move and my general preference for simplicity meant that I wanted to figure out a way to make Christmas special for the kids without making me crazy with "stuff." So we did four tangible presents: something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read. Then for the big special gifts, we gave experiences rather than things. I think it ranked up there as the best Christmas ever. The kids appreciated the gifts they got, had time to play with them and really enjoy each one, and they have a bunch of fun experiences to look forward to that will make Christmas last all year. Definitely the start of a new tradition.

So, Merry Christmas, a day late. This should be a post about Boxing Day if I were being properly English.







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