Holiday Baking

We've done a lot of baking over this Christmas break. 

First, we made chocolate chip cookies.

Next, we made sugar cookies.

Most recently, we made homemade cinnamon rolls.

My youngest is always there to help, and I really appreciate that about her. 

She's not so little anymore, so she is actually a big help.  

 

Our Christmas Book

It's the only scrapbook I have ever kept- our Christmas book. 

I've got pictures from every Christmas since my oldest was a baby. 

For many years, I'd print separate pictures and then paste them in with various decorations like most scrapbooks. 

In recent years, I've been making things really easy on myself by making one big Shutterfly collage with Christmas images from that year and just sliding that into the book. 

I will also slide in the various Christmas doodles the girls draw or Happy Birthday cards they write to Jesus or Christmas wish lists, etc. and all those keepsakes makes for an even better Christmas book. 

 

 

Our Christmas Box

 

We opened the Christmas Box and found dresses to everyone fit this year. 

With three girls, I can just keep "old" Christmas dresses and recycle them each year.

 

 

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Avril and Adele said they couldn’t remember this story. It has been too many years since we read it aloud. So I just read the whole thing to them this afternoon with a few, short breaks. A friend at church recommended this to the moms in our MOPS group back when Norah was a preschooler. That was just yesterday, right? And thanks to other friends, I remembered this treasure this year. I have been a few different people in this story at different times in my life. I didn’t grow up in church. I wasn’t exactly Imogene when I started attending youth group, but I certainly wasn’t a church kid. But I fell in love with Jesus and God’s story and His house and His people and His ways. By God’s grace, my kids are church kids and they know the Christmas story and the songs by heart. Now I’m less like Imogene, more like Mother, or Mrs. Armstrong, or even Mrs. Wendelken (at times.) Lord, have mercy. But may we all “catch onto the idea of God and the wonder of Christmas” again just like Imogene did. “Hey! Unto you a child is born!” If you haven’t read this yet, you have to!

Our Christmas Books

We keep our specifically Christmas books under the tree. We have everything in our Christmas book collection from poetry anthologies to the simple,  mundane picture books like How The Grinch Stole Christmas to Dickens's Christmas Carol and Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas. These books then get packed up in with the other Christmas supplies and stored in the attic until the next December-January.  This saves on shelf space, which is alway at a premium around here. It also keeps these books looking very nice, since they aren't used all year. And it certainly makes the holiday more magical for a family of book lovers like us. It's a real sacrifice to put them away for most of the year, but then it is really special when the Christmas books come out again! Note: We usually put presents next to the tree instead of underneath. Or the presents simply go right over top of the books!