Tis the Season...Officially

My mom tells stories about Christmas Eve when my grandpa would secretly put up their tree at night while her and her sister slept. Growing up my parents put the tree up prior to Christmas, but I was raised not to rush the season. Instead to savor, pray, reflect, and wait during this time between Thanksgiving and December 25th. I think to take the holidays slow, and be patient is even harder to do in todays culture of Christmas music at the beginning of November. But I still try to continue the attitude my parents taught me with my own family.

So today, with the date being December 1st, I slowly start the preparation for Christmas. One of my own traditions is putting out one Christmas decoration a day from the 1st until Christmas Eve. So then, by the time Christmas rolls around, there are 25 items in our home (its a small house) to remind us of the holiday. The decorations vary from year to year, and if you ask my kids, some days are skipped and I have to play catch up...or we have less than 25 decorations on other years (oh well).

I've done this day by day decorating since the kids were little. I think it started, because as a mom of four, I was too tired and overwhelmed to put out everything all at once. The kids enjoy searching out the display, seeing an old school project hanging on the wall, or finding something new I may have purchased or created that year. It has become a kind of Christmas hide and seek.

Every year I start the tradition with the same item. Our old advent calendar. We have owned it for about 15 years now.

I love how it is a nativity scene and advent calendar all in one. Each day we choose a character from a pouch and stick it on the grass above. After all the years and some very worn out velcro I can't believe we still have all 25 pieces. We need to say a little Christmas prayer that they all survive the cloth eating puppy this year.

My favorites are the little cows. That is the character I would choose if I was the lucky one to decorate on day one.