Category: Christmas

We took the Christmas tree down

Today was the day we took the Christmas tree down.  Yes, I know it’s February 4, 2017, but I just wasn’t ready to take the Christmas tree down.  There is a song written by Michael McLean for his famous Christmas program “The Forgotten Carols” that says, “I cry the day I take the tree down.  I want the season to last all year long”.  That is exactly how I feel.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Christmas season and everything it stands for.  I love the decorations, the lights, the children faces, the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, shopping for presents everything about it I LOVE.

I knew in my heart it was time we took the Christmas tree down when my 4 yr old grandson Nyxon said to me a couple of weeks ago, “grandma I can still see your Christmas tree.  Christmas is over and you need to take it down”  I responded with a smile on my face, “no, I’m not ready to take it down yet”.  Nixon replied, “you have to take it down as Christmas is over”.  To which I once again replied, “no, I’m not taking it down.”  Nyxon promptly said,”My mommy took my Christmas tree down so you have to take yours down.”  Once again I responded, “no i’m not taking it down yet”.  Won’t he be a surprised little boy next time he comes over to play and sees the Christmas tree gone from in front of the window.  Another reason it was time we took down the Christmas tree was because some of the younger grandchildren were taking the ornaments off, and a couple of my grandchildren’s ornaments that they each have, broke and had to be glued back together.

So today has been a quiet day.  No more Christmas tree lights to plug in.  Next year come the first week of November you can bet that my Christmas tree will be up and the lights will be plugged in every night and during the day when I’m home.  I LOVE Christmas.

Family Christmas Traditions

How many of you have fun family Christmas Traditions.  Traditions takes on many meanings, but I’m going to let you in on some of my family traditions, specifically family Christmas traditions.  I will talk about other traditions in other blogs, but for today, I’m going to talk about our family Christmas traditions.  I think we have started several traditions, but some haven’t been continued due to family getting married and moving away.

Before my boys married, we used to drive around on Christmas Eve and see what eating establishment would be opened. In the “olden days” as my boys say, restaurants used to close for Christmas Eve, they no longer do that, and stay open at least for the dinner hours.  One year, it became a laughing matter, and my boys still reflect back on it, and have a good laugh.  We drove to many establishments that year, but they were all closed.  I honestly don’t remember if we ever found a place to eat, or if we just went home.  Sometimes now, we go out on Christmas Eve, but make it an early night, so that the grandchildren that are close can go home at a decent hour. This year however, Christmas Eve was a quiet evening spent at home just me and Papa Ron.

Also one tradition that we started is a fun gift exchange that we really enjoy.  Not your normal gift exchange, but one we like to do that for now just involves the adults as the kids are still a little young to understand the concept.  In the beginning, we would buy a $15-$20 gift, wrap it, and then bring it to the family Christmas party and do the normal pass the gift games.  However, they last couple of years, we have done “themes” for the gifts.  Last years theme was “homemade”.  The rules were simple, it had to be homemade and you could only spend $15 in supplies.  What a creative family I have.  My oldest made a clock out of a cigar box and his wife made flavored olive oil and bread.  My middle son grows wonderful roses from cuttings off of the roses in my yard, and that was his gift, his wife made a wooden Christmas sign.  My youngest son made a fleece blanket and his wife made a JOY sign on a wooden board.  I made a step stool out of 2X4’s and my husband tied a flannel quilt. One of my daughter in laws is from Hungary and her parents are also with us on Christmas and join in the fun.  Her mom made Hungarian cookies and her dad made a candy and nut mixture. We then did the normal pass around the group game. This was really fun.  This year for 2016, our theme was “as seen on TV”.  Your limit was $15 dollars and you had to purchase something that was advertised on TV.  What fun we had.  We didn’t do your normal, left, right game, but instead I wrote a game from an idea I had seen on Pinterest to pass and exchange the gifts.  We wrapped each gift 3 times, so we had 3 rounds to open the gifts.  I made the instructions for each round rhyme, and round 2 I personalized for all the adults that would be involved. Each person would trade their gift with several others before there turn was through.  The ones that ended up with their own gifts had the choice to keep it, or trade with someone else that ended up with their own gift.  I thought it was really fun.  I’m not sure the kids were totally on board, but they were really good sports.  We are all going to use our products for a month, then I will do a product review for each of our “as seen on TV” gifts.  We haven’t come up with a theme for 2017 yet.  I’ve got some good ideas though so stay tuned.

Because gifts are opened so quickly, we played games this year  to incorporate the unwrapping of gifts.  We also had other games with prizes to keep the grandkids occupied.  They LOVED this, especially the wrapped prizes.  I’m already working on next years games and prizes.  Keep reading Ordinary Grandma throughout the 2017 year for our ideas and more fun things to come.