Christmas Traditions

A few weeks ago, as an ice and snow storm was threatening the east coast, our family spent an entire weekend getting ready for the holidays. With bad weather outside, we had a lot of indoor family together-time. After all, isn’t that what Christmas is all about?! We started some new traditions and continued some others, and it wasn’t always smooth sailing. It kind of reminded me of the Griswold Family Christmas from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – starting with our visit to the tree farm!

I took the boys to Stonehearth Christmas Tree Farm here in Madison last year so that we could see the toy train. To see that post (and how much my kids have grown up in the last year!), click here. This year we returned to the farm (with Dad and 3-week-old Spence in tow), to cut down our family tree!

Kind of like Clark Griswold, the boys wanted to bring home the biggest tree they could find…

That sort of tree just doesn’t fit quite right in an old Virginia farmhouse. Instead, we opted for this little guy, which is just right:

Then it was time to pull out the saw! The boys all got in on the action…

Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiimberrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

And while cutting the tree was pretty fun, the favorite part was definitely the train. The boys could have watched for hours as it looped around the tracks.

The hot chocolate and the candy canes weren’t too shabby either!

The next morning, while it sleeted outside, we listened to Christmas carols, baked some Christmas cookies (these cookies, to be exact), and strung the lights on the tree.

My baking assistant and Chief Dough Eater.

This was the first year that Gibbs and Casey were actively involved in decorating the tree. In the past, I just put up the ornaments on my own after they went to bed. This year, however, they were way too excited to allow that to happen. Instead, we experienced numerous broken ornaments, shattered glass on the ground, and a few tears. I swear they had fun, though!

Hey, at least the tree hasn’t been knocked over yet. ‘Tis the season!

Then, the next day, the ice from the storm had piled up just enough to knock out our power. Not knowing how long we would be stuck in the dark, I quickly threw some clothes and diapers into my bags and hauled the three boys up north to my parents’ house. Gibbs and Casey thought this was a fun, surprise adventure. I just thought it was exhausting, but I was grateful to have a warm place to go. And fortunately, since we were stuck inside at my parents’ house while the snow storm continued, my mom provided a bit of indoor entertainment in the form of a gingerbread house kit. This was just our level — a pre-assembled house, so that all we had to do was stick on the candy. Definitely a fun way to spend some indoor time…if you can handle the tummy aches that followed.

This was definitely a team effort, and everyone had their own role. TT took pictures with my iPhone, while GrandDaddy supervised from a safe distance.

Casey’s only part in this activity was consuming massive amounts of sugar. He ate the entire time that his big brother worked. But man, was he good at that particular job. He ingested an impressive amount of candy without vomiting! Again, ’tis the season.

 

The finished product:

And then, once the weather cleared later in the week, we made our way into town for yet another Christmas tradition: visiting with Santa. In case you missed it, you can see last year’s picture here. Based on our experiences over the past few years, I consider this year’s photo a true Christmas miracle — three boys and no tears!