Faith & FamilyA Holiday with Heart: Christmas Traditions December 10, 2015 I am so excited to be joining with Jennifer from withHEART today for her series, A Holiday with Heart. I absolutely love the idea behind this series: sharing not just pretty holiday decor, but our Christmas traditions and the meaning we find in the season. If you’re heading over here from Simply Organized, welcome! I’m so happy that you’re here. When we first got married, my husband often referred to me as an elf. I love Christmas. I live the majority of the year in anticipation of the next Christmas season. For the last few years, knowing we would soon have little ones, I’ve dug deeper into the season and really focused on establishing our family traditions for them. Decorating our home for the season is so much fun and is really my thing, but I try to remind myself that it’s an outward display of the season to remind us and refocus us. It’s Rosie’s first Christmas, so we’re really excited to put our traditions into practice this year more than ever before. All of our traditions and how we celebrate really have one goal in mind: to focus on the reason for the Season. We reflect and we reminisce, but we also look forward with hope of God’s faithfulness. I bought this nativity when we were engaged knowing we would need a nativity for our home. Each year I take out each piece carefully from their tissue paper wrappings and display somewhere prominently in our home. I want it to be something that we see every day and that everyone who enters our home during the season sees. This year, it’s sitting on our entry table. I’m excited to use this nativity to tell Rosie the Christmas story in the coming years. I was given a special book last Christmas when Rosie was on her way that I can’t wait to use. It’s called Donkey in the Living Room and it’s about an amazing nativity tradition to have with your family. You set out your nativity stable at the beginning of the season, but the animals and people are missing. Beginning nine days before Christmas, a small, wrapped package arrives on the mantel (or somewhere the kids know to expect it). Each day, they open a figure from the nativity set. The book gives you the order to open them and gives you a script to read each day. This is what I love most. The scripts are written from the perspective of that figure and as you approach Christmas, they really tell you the entire Christmas story in a simple and powerful way. By Christmas, the nativity is full. Jesus has come. I think that’s the tradition I’m most excited about. {Read about our Advent Calendar here}. I absolutely love the idea of Advent. Counting down the days in anticipation and an advent calendar gives us an exciting visual representation that what we’ve been hoping and waiting for is drawing near. While I love giving and opening presents, full stockings by the fireplace, a huge breakfast, and all of the other traditional trimmings of the day, I wanted to find a way to remind us as we counted down that we aren’t just waiting for those things. These cards are awesome because not only do they have fun, colorful pictures on them, but each one has a very short and simple devotion and verse on the back, perfect for little minds trying to understand this season (and still thought-provoking for us). Each day, we get out that day’s card and take a minute to read the back and reflect on it as we hang it up. The first few years of our marriage, I didn’t hang all of the special and sentimental ornaments we had because I wanted a pretty, themed tree. I still love my pretty themed trees and I love the creativity that goes along with them. But I’ve realized that there needs to be a place for both. Any excuse for another tree is good in my book! This is our first year in a new house, so I’m figuring out all of this for the first time here. This year, the themed tree went in our living room and the family tree is in the office & playroom where we’re starting to spend a lot of time. We make a big production out of decorating it. I let go of my need for “ornament balance,” and just decorate (and allow Chris to decorate 🙂 ). We have Christmas music playing. We have hot chocolate or cookies (this year, it was gingerbread). We take one ornament out at a time and tell the story of that ornament. We have ornaments from our childhood, ornaments I bought for us for our first Christmas, and ornaments purchased on vacations. We also get some family ornaments each year that symbolize what’s happened that year. Usually, I like to let this night kick off the Christmas season for us, but this year, we’ve been delayed with a lot of different craziness going on around here. We actually decorated it last night, but I didn’t get a chance to photograph it. This was our family tree last year. This year, we went with a full-size tree and y’all, we filled it up. We had the absolute best time sharing memories and seeing how far our family has come. Last year, I framed an ultrasound photo and wrote the year on it for one of our family ornaments. Unpacking that tonight was so special. For us, this is such a fun tradition. We laughed. I might’ve teared up. But it’s more than just sharing memories. It’s looking back at the story of our lives and seeing how God’s clearly woven a family together. Reflecting on the changes, the blessings, and the triumphs affirms our belief and fills our hearts with gratitude. I absolutely can’t wait until little Rosie is old enough to unpack the ornaments and take part. My goal with all of these traditions (and some other little ones we do) is that we would all be captured by the season…that we would take pause and remember that love came down for us. Thank y’all so much for stopping by to see how we do Christmas here at The Buffalo Bungalow. You can see our full Christmas tour here. I would absolutely LOVE to hear how you do Christmas! We’re constantly talking about our traditions and looking for new ones for our little one. I’m all ears! Make sure you head on over to the next stop on today’s tour to see what Christmas traditions she has up her sleeve: Sita Montgomery. A huge thanks again to Jenn for having me and for putting on such a fabulous and purpose-filled tour!
Julia@Cuckoo4Design says December 10, 2015 at 7:12 am That photo of Rosie! And I’ve never heard of that book, sounds like a great way to celebrate and introduce the holidays to the kids. Reply
Linda B says December 10, 2015 at 10:25 am How beautiful! What is passed from one generation to the next is priceless. My mother-in-law brought a Nativity set home for each of her three children from Mexico years ago. We put ours up every year. One of my favorite memories is of my son, who was 7 at the time, setting up the Nativity in our living room. Every character was crammed facing baby Jesus, with none of the careful placement that one usually sees. We saw a lot of backs. I just smiled and thought, well, “Come Let Us Adore Him”. I doubt the angels, shepherds, wise men and other attendants stood around ready for a picture! This has made me smile ever since. By the way, my son is 17, and still puts out the Nativity. Merry Christmas! Reply
Lindsay says December 10, 2015 at 9:50 pm Linda, I love that story!!!! The way it should be 😉 Reply
Samantha says December 10, 2015 at 12:43 pm LOVE this. So so much!!! Your post reminded me of my first Christmas with my son…who’s now 11 (noooooooo! how did that happen?). Such a beautiful home and had so much fun joining you and the others in this series! xo, Sam Reply
Lindsay says December 10, 2015 at 9:48 pm Aww thank you, Sam! It’s a special one. I’m trying to remember that and savor each day. Glad to join in with you! Reply
Jennifer@The Chronicles of Home says December 10, 2015 at 9:28 pm Beautiful, Lindsay. I’ll have to look into that book – my girls are really into the nativity but I sometimes have a hard time explaining it all in way that little minds can wrap around. Reply
Lindsay says December 10, 2015 at 9:49 pm I read through it the other day and it is awesome!!! Really simple, but fun and powerful too! Reply
Jen Stagg says December 14, 2015 at 12:34 am Thank you so much for sharing, Lindsay! How special for your first Christmas with Rosie. Those photos of her are so precious. What a beautiful nativity. I have been searching for the right one for years and it looks like you found exactly that. I can’t thank you enough for joining in, and for including me in your tours. So glad we’re friends! xx Reply
Lindsay says December 14, 2015 at 10:13 am Thank you so much for having me, Jen! I loved joining in 🙂 Reply
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