Christmas Traditions: Alli

For the final Christmas Traditions guest post, I have a fantastic lady who I can't imagine life without.  Allow me to introduce you to Alli, also known as Sister #3.

Hello, Blog World!  Lissa asked me to guest blog about my Christmas traditions.  

I’d like to take a moment to tell you a little about myself, and then I’ll get into the Christmas tradition stuff.  First of all, I am a Christian….our family is privileged to serve God through the ministry of the Grace Baptist Church.  

I am a wife to my best friend, Shannon; he is my rock, my teacher, and my Godly example. 

I am a mother to Jackson who is a talkative, funny 3 year old full of energy and his sister, Mackinley, who is a nutty 1 year old food-aholic with a silly personality.  

A dictionary definition of the word “tradition” is “a specific practice of long standing.”  

Our family does not have many planned traditions, but we do have things that we know WILL HAPPEN EVERY YEAR whether they are planned or not!  

Below are a few for your reading (and laughing) pleasure….enjoy!

·         Someone (usually from my husband’s family) gives us a Christmas Popcorn Tin every year. 
·         I watch the movie Elf at least once between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I laugh every time as if I had never seen it before!  “I’m singing...!  I’m in a store and I’m singing….!!”  Haha! 
·         Shannon will get a box of toiletries from the White Elephant gift game every year.
·         We will watch a few Friends Christmas episodes.
·         Before Christmas Day is over, the phrase “Christmas Is Ruined!” will be hollard several times.
·         Every year Shannon tells me that he is going to make me watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” because he can’t believe I’ve never seen it before.
·         Every year I somehow get out of having to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  (I’ve been lucky for 10 Christmases so far….after he reads this blog, this probably won’t be on my list of “traditions” anymore!  LOL!)
·         Every year Shannon wears/uses at least one of his Christmas gifts BEFORE Christmas.
·         Every year we get together with both sides of our family.  There is always food and kids and presents and lots of laughter!
·         One of our newest “traditions” is taking the kids to look at Christmas lights.  It’s always a great time!

Now that our kiddos are getting older and learning more about Christmas, we will add more “traditions” to the list. 

Merry CHRISTmas to everyone!  

Let’s take time to hug our kids, spend time with our family, and thank God for sending His Son Jesus Christ to us on Christmas Day!

Thanks so much, sista for taking the time to share!
D and I really cherish our friendship with Alli and Shannon.  They are wonderful family, friends and godly examples!  Love them to pieces!  Here is my fav pic from our church's "Ugly Christmas Sweater" party this year:

Christmas Traditions: Kelley

It's time for another Christmas Traditions guest post!  Today is my sweet friend, Kelley, who blogs over at Life Behind The Badge.  Kelley went to high school with Tiff and I.  She is a pretty busy lady  being a wife, mother to 2 precious little boys, nurse, student and photographer on the side.  I'm thankful that she took the time between all of that to tell us about some things her and her family do for Christmas.

Being new to blogging (and I must admit, not very good), I was really honored that Lissa or Mo, as I know her from way back in high school, would ask me to guest post.  I can say welcome to a southern Christmas because as of today I am in my home state of Louisiana.  It's warm, borderline hot and it's perfect.

Thinking back to traditions, I have noticed that just a few things have changed nice my sisters and I have moved out of the house and two of us to different states. Throw in the grandkids and Christmas is different than when I was a kid. =)  So some things have changed, like my location for Christmas or who gets the most presents (not me anymore, sob ;), but the core of what makes it a family Christmas has not, nor do I think it will ever change.  

The first thing you would have to know is that my mom is a Christmas fanatic. She has a few choice things that never seem to make their way back into storage, but the rest she puts up just as soon as she can and leaves up just as long as she can.  I would say my Christmas could not be complete without my mom's decorations.

 

The second thing I love is our shopping game. Each year, the day after Christmas, the family will meet at the mall.  We will draw envelopes with $10 and a name inside.  We then have one hour to shop for your name. We meet back and reveal who we had.  It's so much fun to see what kind of deals we each find and we also compete on who can find the best "free" bag (the gymboree bag is always a cute idea).

 

 

 The third and last thing that is a must and it's actually number one for us is the reading of the Christmas story follow by a birthday cake complete with a candle.  We always want to remember that because of His birthday we can all have a new-birth day in Christ. As kids, ok well even now, my Dad reads the verses and will pause for us to fill in the scripture.  Mom would then get out the cake with Happy Birthday Jesus written on it and we would sing. 

 

 

These are just a few of my favorite traditions and ones that I know we will pass on to our children and I hope they brought some Christmas cheer to you.  

Thanks Ya'll!

Thank you, Kell for taking time and sharing with us!  

I love the shopping game!!

(Side note:  She took all of the pictures last night at her Mom's house.) 

Beautiful!

Christmas Traditions: Tiffany

 Today I have my real life and blog friend Tiffany from over at Breakfast with Tiffany talking about her family and how they celebrate Christmas. Tiff and I have known each other forever.  

She is a wonderful Christian lady, wife, mother, blogger and her friendship through out the years means the world to me!

When Lissa asked me to guest post for her about what Christmas means to me, I was suuuuper excited! Since my little blog is all about silly superficial musings about my clothes, I don't delve into the deeper stuff too often, so I jumped at the chance to talk about something meaningful. =)

Aaahhh, Christmas!! This is absolutely my favorite time of year. Here in the south, the air starts to cool off a bit (even dropping to absolutely frigid temps in the 40's!) and you start to see Christmas lights popping up. Every store you visit is playing Christmas music. People are friendlier and happier, and there's excitement in the air everywhere you go. I just love it!

Deyyna's Corner

The shopping, the decorations, the music, the colder weather, the exchanging of gifts, it's all really about something more, isn't it?  I'm amazed that in a world so obsessed with pushing Christ and God out of our lives, we still have a day to celebrate the birth of our Savior! I love that on this special day, the 25th of December, so many people in the world (believers and nonbelievers alike) comes together to celebrate Christ's birth.

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At the same time, however, it's so incredibly sad that Christ is even being taken out of Christmas, the day dedicated to celebrating his birth. So many children know Christmas as the day when Santa brings presents, and they don't even realize it's the day the Savior was born into the world so that he could bring us the precious gift of salvation!

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In our house, we've combined some traditions from my family and the Hubs' family, as well as making some new ones of our own. One of the silly and fun traditions is that every Christmas morning spent with my family, we all wear matching pajama pants kind of as a way to bring some unity to what is a fun and chaotic morning. =)

Another tradition that we've gotten from both my family and the Hubs' family is that before we do anything on Christmas morning, before we open any presents or peek into our stockings, we all gather together and read the Christmas story in Luke Chapter 2. 

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We always make an enormous amount of Christmas goodies and give them to family and friends.  Umm, of course, we keep a little bit (okay, a lot!) for ourselves too. ;)  This year, our Little Guy will be a bit more involved in the goody making (and eating!), I'm sure. 

I also like to dress the kids up into fun Christmas coordinated outfits and take pictures of them.  What mom doesn't like to do that, right? ;)

Christmas is a fun time, filled with candy and absolutely scrumptious food and presents and Christmas lights.  But it's also a sacred time, a time that is set aside to celebrate the birth of our Lord. So, while we have fun and enjoy every minute of the Christmas season, we also do our best to keep Christ prominent in all that we do.

So, what kinds of things do you like to do to celebrate Christmas?  How do you keep Christ first during a such a festive time when he can be pushed aside for the excitement of Santa and presents and parties?  What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

I have always LOVED how they do the matching pajamas on Christmas!!

Thanks, Tiff for taking the time to share your Christmas thoughts and traditions with us!  :o) 

Christmas Traditions: My Toots

Oh my goodness, do I LOVE Christmas!!!

I love the lights, the sounds, the smells, the cheer and the gifts are ok, too!  ;o)

Christmas has become even more special since I had Toots.  

I always have a blast shopping for her, wrapping up her presents, making cookies, watching her face on Christmas morning...and of course all the cutie patootie pics of her!  :o)

Here are a few of my favorites:

2002

2003

2004

Yes, that is underwear on her head.  Crazy kid!

2005

All of my 2005 pics are on my Mom's computer.  

It was a crazy year...we had a little storm come thru called Hurricane Katrina.  

She still took cute pictures, of course.  :o)

2006

 2007

 

2008

 2009

 2010

2011

These pictures and memories are still to be taken and made...

Stay tuned!!  :o)

Speaking of staying tuned...I have another lovely lady guest posting on Friday.

Come back by and learn about some of Tiffany's Christmas traditions!

Christmas Traditions: Amy

I have only known Amy for a few months and I already love her!  Her and her family are members of our church.  She has the most bubbly personality and her family is just precious!

Hi! My name is Amy and I live in  Belle Chasse, LA. 

Even though I live in the South, I'm a bona fide Hoosier. 

I was born and raised in southern Indiana and I love it there. 

I went to college at Pensacola Christian College and received my Associates in Office System. 

I met my husband there and will be forever grateful that I was lead to go to PCC. 

God truly brought us together!

We were married in January 2010.

He joined the Navy in April 2010.

We have a little girl, Liberty, born in November 2010.

I am expecting a boy right now.
He will be born around Christmas time.
We are so excited!

With the Christmas season coming quickly around the corner, my husband and I have been talking about what type of Christmas traditions we would like to start with our family. We both loved the family traditions we both grew up with, so we are going to try to incorporate them along with some of our own. This will also be our first Christmas together since we have been married ( he was at boot camp for our first Christmas and his first Christmas with Liberty).

My favorite Christmas tradition that I grew up with was my mother would never write our names on our presents because one year my sisters and I unwrapped all our presents when they were asleep ( we were very curious little girls ). So she would label them with numbers or super heroes or colors.
My husband's favorite tradition was the stockings, his parents would hide this little Christmas bear somewhere in the house and whoever found it first got to open their stocking first.

Our tradition we are going to start is wrap new and old books up and every night in December our children will unwrap one of the books and we will read it to them. 

I want to wish everyone a very happy and Merry Christmas!

Thank you, Amy!!  
Aren't they the cutest family?!  I can't wait for baby boy to get here!  
He is going to make the perfect Christmas present for them.  :o)

 

Christmas Traditions: Old & New

Since this is D and mine's first Christmas together, we have been discussing the way we have celebrated it up until now.

We have been sharing stories of Christmases when we were kids.

We also discussed what we have been doing regarding our kids' Christmas traditions.

We have decided that we want to incorporate some old memories and new ideas  to make up what will now be OUR Christmas traditions.

Over the next few weeks until Christmas, I will be sharing some of these with y'all.

I have also asked some good friends (bloggers and non-bloggers) to share what they do with their families to celebrate the Holidays.

Tomorrow you will get to meet Amy and learn about her family and how they do Christmas.  :o)