Wordless Wednesday: A Christmas Story

We totally surprised the boys with a swing set for Christmas! Hubby and Pa and V set it up Christmas Eve after the boys were asleep.....and it is definitely the hit we expected it to bed! 

Wordless Wednesday: Christmas Throwback

Hubby and I's first Christmas tree together!

Lil Mister first Christmas!

XOXxx

Shana Danae..

Tuesday Tunes: Christmas Style

This is a beautiful, beautiful version of one of my favorite songs! These guys are amazing!

Merry Christmas Eve Organized Chaos readers! I'm so grateful for each of you and pray you have an absolutely amazing Christmas!



XOXxx

Shana Danae..

Sunday Inspiration: A Child is Born

intothelightjournal.blogspot.com

XOXxx

Shana Danae..

Saturday Funny: Christmas Style

funylool.com

Tuesday Tunes: Getting in the Christmas Spirit

Growing up this was my favorite Christmas song! My dad and I used to dance around the living room belting out the lyrics as we decorated the tree! Makes me miss home!




XOXxx

Shana Danae..

Tagged For Christmas

Dawn from Dawn’s Disaster was tagged in the annual tag run by Lanaya at RaisingReagan. I’m so excited to have been tagged by Dawn this round!

Christmas Traditions

Did you have any Christmas traditions growing up? Where there any favourites?

I know that there are some things that have ground themselves into my very nature when it comes to holidays. Yet, living in South Africa, some of these are now hard to come by.

I’ve decided that I need to start creating some new traditions mixed with a little old to make the years memories with my children!

So today, as this post is scheduled and I will not be on my blog, I have taken a moment to jot down a few new traditions that I want to begin with my children! I hope all of you are enjoying a very special Christmas with your families!

 

1)    I will make homemade eggnog every year! I love this stuff and used to drink myself sick on it during the holidays! I will make it for my children as we don’t buy it here! We will drink ice cold eggnog throughout the December holiday! ;-)

2)    I read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” every Christmas Eve. I know I posted about the meaning of Christmas, but this is an adorable story that will remain a past time with my boys!

3)    Starting next year I want my boys to make handmade Christmas cards to send out to our family and friends each year. I love Christmas cards but feel that something hand made is so much more special!

4)    As the boys get older, we will donate to a charity each year. I’d love to find something local that is involved with children so my boys can experience giving to needy ‘friends.’

5)    We will listen/sing Christmas carols while setting up and decorating our tree (note to self: buy Christmas music!)

6)    We spend time each season focusing on why we celebrate Christmas and doing activities about the birth of Jesus Christ.

7)    I want to study with my boys (at an age appropriate level) the life of Christ each year from Christmas to Easter. We will read the stories and do art and fun things so that as they grow up they will know His life and teachings! (not that we don’t read our Bibles all year!)

8)    Christmas will always be spent with family!

 

It isn’t about the traditions really, but I want my boys to remember that this is a special time for us and that we need to be enjoying it and learning it and making the most of it!

I hope and pray you have the opportunity to do just that today!

Merry Christmas!

Shana..

Loss in spirit; Gain in Spirit

This weekend has my internal clock all messed up! I’ve done so well since coming home from the hospital at being in bed by a decent time. However, Friday night we had a braai with our parents and I only got home after midnight and then on Saturday we had a braai with friends at our house. Again, I was in bed after midnight.

So now it is Sunday and after 10 pm and I still cannot sleep.

I’m surely going to regret this! Lil Mister does not sleep past 5:30am very often and I highly doubt karma is so kind as to let it be tomorrow that he does! ;-)

It doesn’t help that I only got Lil Mister to sleep 15 minutes ago and I figure based on LJ’s last feed he should be awake in the next 15 minutes again.

Coffee...you are my best friend these days!

I’m still in shock that it is already Christmas. Yes, I realize it is still another day away, but really!

This will be my fourth Christmas in South Africa, but I can’t seem to find the spirit anymore. It hasn’t felt like Christmas since I moved here.

As I sit looking at our Christmas tree, I’m taken back to all the years spent celebrating with my family.

I miss the cold weather. I remember tracking through the rows that never ended through the cold and snow to find the ‘perfect family Christmas Tree.’ (Please envision the Clark Griswold Family Christmas Tree here!)

As a child I would fill my pockets and even stuff my coat full of the pine cones I would find along the way. I still love the smell of fresh pine!

We’d get home that afternoon and my mom would make hot chocolate (I’m positive now that I’m a parent that my mom and dad’s hot chocolates were spiked with vodka; otherwise they weren’t making it until that night!) and we’d listen to Christmas music while decorating the tree.

Really cheesy but that is what we did EVERY year!

I can’t understand why when I enter a mall; I don’t smell that sickening sweet scent of the roasted nuts. Nor do I feel it is right that there aren’t Christmas lights and decorations covering the streets and houses.

There are no night time drives to see the lights. There are no Salvation Army guys ringing their silly little bells. We aren’t bundled up watching endless reruns of the same Christmas movies. And there is no snow to wake up to on Christmas morning.

I feel like I’ve lost Christmas.

Then I found it again.

All of the sudden I realized how commercialized even I had let Christmas become to me.

I grew up being taught the true meaning of Christmas and was in every single Christmas pageant at church. I know the story by heart because it is the equivalents of thousands of years of prophecy come true. It is the entire reason for the season (sorry for the cheesy rhyme!).

Yet, even I have fallen victim to Hallmarks branding over the years. As I grew older and was able to apply the memory of scents, sounds, and images to the holiday, I somehow lost what was truly important.

Christmas is after all about Christ’s birth.

I know you’re like...duh!

But how easily I’d let that fall to the back burner while still living in the states. I’d grown so accustomed to the hoopla of the season that I’d grown cold to the meaning. I’d lost Christmas when I moved to South Africa because I’d lost the meaning of it many years before that.

I’m grateful for this now. As I sit preparing my children’s presents, I realized how blessed we are. I’m thankful to raise my children in a way that they won’t experience the extravaganza firsthand the way I did. I’m thankful that I will be able to focus more on the meaning of Christmas and teach my children why we celebrate the holiday in such a close and family oriented manner.

I’m thankful that I had to lose my Christmas spirit to be able to rejoice Christmas in the Spirit!

I will still read “The Night before Christmas” to my children on Christmas Eve. And we will continue to give presents and donate to charities during this time as well.

But I will take a little less time worrying about the lights on my front door and a little more time answering questions about ‘baby Jazus’ and his ‘farm birth’.

Shana..