- We Must Stay in Town Over Thanksgiving! We went to Reno over Thanksgiving and then spent the entire week after Thanksgiving in California. While it was great to see my parents, it really made us behind. We didn't finish decorating for Christmas until December 6th (something we like to do by the Monday after Thanksgiving normally). Since we were so behind it took time away from a lot of traditions that we love. In the past I have tried to have all shopping, decorating, etc. finished by December 1st (we didn't even get home until December 1st.)
- That way every free and available night we can spend doing really important things like cuddling of kids in front of our tree.
- Do Not Take the Kids Out of School for a Week between Thanksgiving and Christmas! I did not realize what a busy time of year it is at school. Rose was okay, but the boys' were slammed. In the past when I have pulled them out of school for a week it took them about 8 hours to do their make-up work. This time it took them 1 full day on our trip, the whole ride home, 1/2 a day when we were home before they went to school, an extra 2 hours every day for the next week, and staying after school 4 times to take tests. So not only were we behind on decorating, the boys also had zero free time at home for the first week and half we were back. While I also had to drive them back and forth more then I normally would need to.
- Don't Plan Expensive Activities Before Christmas! Imagine our shock when the total bill for our trip to Reno/California ended up being pretty much the amount that I set aside for Christmas. Especially because in the past I have been able to take the kids on vacation to California while only spending $300 for two weeks (that is how much we paid once Ken's reimbursements came back). And then we went and spent nearly 9 times that much. Nice! There was good reason for it because we felt like we needed to concentrate on our children or spend more time with my parents then caring about the $$. But holy cow! It turned out fine in the end and I didn't have to take money out of savings to pay for our vacation or Christmas but it added a whole layer of stress to the month of December.
- The Children Will Have to Wait Until Christmas to Get Presents From Grandparents! Especially because they only receive money from both sets of them. My parents gave our children $100 while we were in California together, of course the kids wanted to go shopping immediately. It kind of wasted 1/2 of a day of our California vacation doing something that we could do at home but I thought it would be good for Lola and Papa to see their happiness shopping. And our children each got about $100 more from all of my Filipino Aunts and Uncles. The main reason why the $$ was such a problem was because our children are fairly simple and that amount of money enabled them to buy every single thing on their Christmas Wish List. They bought a few things but we cut them off and wouldn't let them go shopping for anything for themselves until after Christmas. That helped, but them knowing that they had so much $$ to buy whatever they want also made them give Santa extremely detailed Christmas Lists. Instead of asking for a generic thing like a RC helicopter it turned into a very precise description practically down to the model #. The same thing happened with the girls too, where it was no longer I want a doll, but I want this one with this accessory, etc. It really took all the joy out of Ken and me picking out the children's Christmas presents and we spent a lot of time combating the different attitude surrounding presents and giving in our home.
- Don't Skimp on Gifts to People Who Deserve Them. Because of overspending on vacation and since I had a huge tub full of generic Christmas gifts I figured hey, let's give them to all the kids teachers. But here's the thing about gifts, while the ones I had laying around were perfectly fine and lovely to give away, the real purpose is for it to come from the heart and to be what we truly want to give. We ended up having a change of heart at the last minute and went and bought a ton of gift cards to the movies, which I suppose many people might feel is generic. But our children have amazing teachers who often go out of their way to support them and encourage them, or give them 2nd (or 3rd) chances. We figure that they deserve a fun night out in appreciation of all that they do. I've struggled with this principle the past few years because our boys are in Middle School now and have 8 teachers each, but every year at the last minute we have a change of heart and give to all of them because they all truly deserve every little way that we can show our gratitude. I'm just going to have to add a line item in our budget to reflect this.
- Don't Offer to Dog Sit or Animal Sit. We have had two lovely dogs staying in our home for nearly three weeks now. The dogs are wonderfully behaved, house trained, perfect with kids. So then why are we never going to animal sit over the holidays?? Because it has been a huge distraction for our children. At some point every single day one of our children has been upset (to the point of tears) that one or more of their siblings are paying attention to the dogs. On top of the numerous times each day when the girls aren't doing their chores or simple tasks like coming to the dinner table-- that has been driving me and Ken batty. The dogs have been fun, but not fun for us as a whole family. I think the only thing that hasn't made Ken completely upset with this experience is that I have decided that we really shouldn't get another dog. I was leaning that way but we have missed Phoebe. It's just that our life style doesn't do well with having pets. We can't jet off to Cancun for a month and still have a dog to worry about. Also, I doubt we would ever be able to train a dog as well as these two are. Pretty much everyone but the girls are ready to have the dogs go home because of all the jealousy. I nearly forgot to put this on our list until Rose came up to me crying because all Ginger wanted to do was play with one of the dogs.
What To Do:
- Have the Children Make Presents for Each Other! We debated giving our children experiences since they could purchase anything they wanted with their load of cash. But, after watching the Christmas Devotional and hearing how much our children loved the story of President Eyring making a treasure box for his wife we talked our children into only making our presents for each other. This completely changed their attitude from one of "I Want!" to "What Can I Give?" It was fantastic! They loved the time we took talking to them about their talents and brainstorming ideas that they could give and make for each other. They also loved the one-on-one time Ken and I spent with them as we helped them. You could see that they were really proud of what they could give of themselves. This brought the Christmas Spirit into our home like never before! The only thing we would change is that Ken and I were also planning on making things for the children too. We simply did not have much of any time to work on them. We did a couple of hours each weekend but after spending one day of the kid's vacation trying to work on them we decided it would be far greater for us to buy the children presents and to give them our time instead. So we snuck out of the house at 3 am and went shopping, came home and quickly wrapped them and put them under the tree.. The kids were so happy the next morning when they saw a pile of presents and they were not disappointed that Mom and Dad were bowing out of making presents for them.
- The 24 Acts of Christmas Love! I like to do this every year, but it's mainly been my thing since I have more free time, but this year the children were part of it more. We also re-capped all the things we did in our private family journal. Basically starting December 1st we try to find 24 acts of meaningful service or gifts that we can provide for someone. It could be physically doing a project, dropping off a meal, babysitting, giving to a Charity, being a Secret Santa, etc. We don't pre-plan it but instead try to have an open heart and listen to any promptings that we might have. This year we were only able to do 22 in the time that we had. Honestly, I was proud of us that we did that much because we were so behind.
- The 12 Days of Christmas! We have been doing this for years with our children and they have loved it but last year (2011) we felt like it was too much and not bringing the right attitude into our family. We decided last year that we would give away our 12 days of Christmas in 2012. We wanted to pick one family to give too, but then our Bishop gave us the advice to pray about it. Instead we went with multiple families. Our family had alot of fun doing this and we combined some with our 24 acts above. We didn't get the full 12 days of Christmas though. All of us deeply missed opening our 12 Days of Christmas as a family. It is a special time when we come together and enjoy the gifts we give our family. So without a doubt it will be back in 2013! I must prepare these beforehand and wrap them before Thanksgiving. The few things we did give to our family with this I didn't even have time to wrap.
- Parties and Dinner's with Friends! We love to see friends and have them over Christmas. This year we hosted 4 parties in 4 weeks. The Boys' had all the LDS kids from their Middle School (about 24 showed) we played games and they had so much fun! Ginger and a Party with her Preschool friends and we were joined by their mom's for a lunch afterwards. Rose and Ginger had a Christmas Party on a Saturday Night for their friends (and their siblings). The boys and 3 of their friends really helped out with the 27 little kids we had for 4 hours so that the parents could go shopping or on a date. Then we had our New Year's Eve Party. All of them were great fun! The New Year's one we will have to scale back the guest list. We have always had an open invitation but this year our house was packed and we weren't able to spend time with friends that we have dearly missed, so we'll have to rethink how we invite. Our Dinners with friends turned out much better though this year and not really stressful. It was nice having a handful of families over one by one.
- Make Christmas Eve our Big Holiday Meal! We had our good friends the Basinger's over for Christmas Eve. I cooked a 20lb. Turkey and 2 large hams, lots of homemade rolls and bread too. We had tons of leftovers for Christmas Day which was fabulous! We stayed in Pj's all day opening presents then playing with them, eating, opening more presents and eating, playing games and doing whatever we wanted. There was no real schedule and it never took long to prepare a meal or a yummy snack from our leftovers. For breakfast I made French Toast with Buttermilk Syrup which was super easy too.
- All Shopping (grocery or for presents) Must be done by December 22nd! This is a new one for this year mainly because Christmas Eve was on a Monday and we had made huge plans for Christmas Eve, which meant the 23rd was Sunday so all of our shopping had to be done early. Of course there was still 3 items I forgot that Ken had to run an pick up Christmas Eve morning but it worked out super well.
- Freeze 20 dozen Cookies and 4 freezer meals before Thanksgiving. This seriously saved my bacon with all the parties we had. I didn't come anywhere near having that many saved but that's about the right number. Besides everyone wants homemade chocolate chip cookies every night in December!
- Purchase all Presents before December 1st, and pre-plan when Ken and I shop. I know that some people are finished shopping in October. But that's just too early for us. Shopping for our children's presents is one of our very favorite dates, and there is no way Ken would be up for shopping super early. Sometimes it is going to the store and playing with all the different toys and sometimes it is buying them online. But it's a tradition that we love to do together. We just need to make sure and mark off the day we shop way in advance.
- Organize Christmas Decorations Into Smaller Boxes and More Thoughtfully. In the past we have bought large plastic red and green bins for our decorations. The colors make it easy to identify the holiday but the bins were so large that they held multiple types of decor (stocking, nativities, garland, etc). My only complaint with decorating for Christmas this year was the girls free for all dive into the boxes. They were pulling things out before we had a chance to place the last things they had grabbed. Even with telling them to stop multiple times they were always ahead of us and alot of it was because they were opening boxes that held misc. items we weren't needing at the moment. The smaller bins should help out alot of that and we clearly labeled them. I've also renamed the bins for the tree decorations. We have about 6 large bins full of ornaments to put on the huge tree. I made one just for the tree skirts, starts, bead garland, and wire hangers and labeled it box #1. We were never able to find the ornament hangers until after Christmas it was so ridiculous. Then we will do all the big ornaments before doing the misc. small ornaments. I have also made a bin just for our special ornaments, the ones that we want to reminisce about when we hang them. I clearly labeled it with a huge X, and wrote all over it that kids are not allowed to open it. Or if they open it, No Christmas Presents for You! It was crazy decorating our tree. Partially because we were so late that we had to squeeze in getting it decorated before business trips and partially because of the girls excitement. So now all of those ornaments will go on last after the ladders have left the family room and when we have proper time to admire them!
- Order Christmas Cards Early and Organize Addresses. This was a time waster this year. I love to receive Christmas cards especially the Holiday letters. But the past two years we haven't sent them so my entire address book needed to be re-vamped. There was also mental anguish over who to send cards to since we switched wards this past summer. Like do I send them to people who are 2 miles away who I haven't seen or talked to for 6 months but who I want to keep in touch with. Aagh, so hard to decide! A lot of them we took treats to still but then after our 6th night of delivering treats we just had to call it good.
- Ken Takes Off Work When the Kids Are Out of School! Technically he was supposed to be off before they got out of school but that didn't quite work out. He also worked most of the first three days they were home even though he was on vacation:-( It's not perfect but he does always try to take off their vacation days. The past week he hasn't had to work at all which was really nice. The times he does have to work part of the day I chalk up to the benefits of working from home. I know he'll make it up to me with a few hours here and there, but sometimes emergencies do happen and we have to deal with it. The kids have been loving all their Dad's free time. We've played lots of games and have had a great time!
- Pare down all extra meetings and activities in December. I've always been a believer in this and was afraid to suggest to not meet with the Cub Scout Leaders in our new ward but I'm glad that I spoke up because everyone else started saying how they would prefer to be home too. Besides we were more then busy enough with all the concerts, recitals, and ceremonies that are children had.
- Place our simple traditions at a higher Priority. Like I said we really do need to lay around the family room cuddling and staring at the Christmas Tree lights. It's a huge tradition. So is Ken reading us a Christmas story every night. We didn't do our nightly rituals that we love to do and that bring us closer as a family. We did do other things that brought our family love, but we still missed some of our every day home moments this year. I guess I will need to block off certain nights for making cinnamon popcorn or our gingerbread houses. With 6 of us, it feels like everything needs to be pre-planned or life gets in the way and takes away our simple moments.
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