Traditions - December 23rd - Yeah...I'm behind

So, as we can all tell, apparently I simply cannot blog every day. I'm just glad I don't get paid for this because, well, I'd be fired by now.
I'm not going to try and make up the last eleven days of traditions, so you don't have to flee the room in terror that I'm going to bore you to death. As I thought about it, many of my traditions are things that everyone does - baking, decorating, etc. - and I found it frustrating, trying to think of ways that I do these things differently than everyone else does.
I did think of one that's unique, though. Many years ago,  my aunt bought a beautiful, cream-colored, damask tree skirt for us for Christmas. The year Reilly was born, I decided that, each year, I was going to embroider her hand prints on the tree skirt in gold thread. For the first three years, I did both hands, with the year underneath them. Then, when Declan was born, I switched to one hand for each of them, with their initial in the middle. (It was much easier!) It's really neat to see how much bigger their hand prints have gotten!
Another tradition that goes along with this one is that I always trace their hands on it at the END of the season, and then lay it aside to embroider, resolving that I'll do it BEFORE next year. Then, three months later, I put the skirt in storage and don't get it back out until we get out the decorations the next year!

Nothing to Do with Traditions!

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with Christmas traditions, but I wanted to share it anyway. Because it made me laugh. A lot!

Declan, who is eight, has a great sense of humor but can often really over-do a joke. I think that's a common quality in all eight-year-olds, especially boys. So, we were at dinner and he had done something funny by accident, then, when it got a laugh, proceeded to do it two more times. Then, this conversation happened:
Me: "My mom used to call that 'running it in the ground'."
Declan: "Guess what? My mom STILL calls that 'running it in the ground'!"
Oh, I foresee many hilarious conversations with him as he grows! He has The Reilly Gene big time - my Grandpa Charlie was a very funny man, so we call that silliness The Reilly Gene. (And, yes, my Reilly is named for the Reilly side of the family!) It's so much fun to watch his comedic timing mature.

Also, bonus story: I fed Supey a marshmallow and laughed a LOT when it got stuck on his raspy tongue thingys! I took a video on my phone and I'll try to figure out how to upload it. (I know you're waiting with bated breadth!)

Traditions - December 12th - Music: Also Known as "Please Don't Make Me Listen to That Song!"

You know, I was thinking. Maybe I should go back and amend my original post about traditions to say that I'll post as many of our family traditions as I can manage in a month when things reach a light-speed amount of activity? Because I'm thinking I was a little ambitious when I said that I was going to post a new tradition every day. Plus, even with the large amount of traditions for our family, I'm not sure that we actually have twenty-five separate ones. And I'm kind of worried that, by the end of the month, I'll be turning, "Brushing my teeth on Christmas Eve" into a tradition.
SO.
I'm not going to backtrack and try to make up the lost days. I'm just going to start with today.
And my tradition for today IS...changing the radio station.
"Wait, how does this relate to Christmas?" you ask.
Here's the deal. I adore Christmas music. As much as I hate it that Wal Mart starts playing Christmas music the day after Halloween, I just LOVE playing Christmas CD's and listening to the radio stations that play non-stop Christmas music starting the day after Thanksgiving. I love the classic carols - Silent Night, Away in a Manger, Angels We Have Heard on High, and ones like that. Some of my favorites are the ones that Bing Crosby and his ilk sing - Walking in a Winter Wonderland, Silver Bells, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Jingle Bells. That classic sound! I sometimes like it when current artists re-make some of the classics. (I say "sometimes". There are plenty of artists who have murdered some of the classics!) A couple of weeks ago, we bought the Michael Buble' Christmas album and it's GREAT! So is Third Day: Christmas Offerings.
There is one song, though, that I really hate.
*gets ready to duck thrown candy canes*
It's "The Christmas Shoes". I think that I may have even blogged about it in the past, so much is my loathing for this song. Call me heartless, call me a Song Scrooge, I don't care. When I'm rocking along with Mariah Carey as she belts out "Alllll I want for Christmaaasss is yoooouuuuuu!", nothing can bring down the mood in the car like a song about a little boy, buying shoes for his dying mom in case she meets Jesus tonight. I'm sorry! When that song comes on, I change the station. The very small cynical part of me even imagines that this boy and his dad are in some kind of thief operation where they scam Jell-O hearted people into buying this darling little kid shoes for his mom, and then they turn around and sell them on eBay. Like a modern-day Artful Dodger and Fagan.
I'm just not sure why this is becoming a trend. I heard another song along that same sad line the other day. And the station actually played the SECOND sad song RIGHT AFTER the song about the shoes. I almost passed out.
Now, all joking aside, I do realize that there are people who are grieving during this season of joy. I realize that there are children out there, not just in third world countries but right here in the U.S., who are not having a jolly Christmas season because of their home life. And so, right before I reach for that radio knob, I try to remember to thank my Heavenly Father for the immense blessings in my life and pray for His divine comfort for those people who need to feel His presence.
Edited to add: I wanted to give you all a link to Samaritan's Purse, which is the organization that heads up the Operation Christmas Child. You can find it RIGHT HERE! I also realized, as I was browsing, that you can actually build a box online and they'll put in the things that you choose and ship it out. I may have to do this with The Kids!!

Traditions - December 6th - Operation Christmas Child

 Every year, we fill a shoe box for Operation Christmas Child through an organization called Samaritan's Purse. The gist of it is that you pick the age range - 3-5, 6-8, 9-13, I think is how they break it up - and gender of the child you're buying for, and then fill a shoe box with all sorts of little things. The Kids always pick for a child that falls into their same age range and we tend to pack our stuff in a shoe box-sized plastic box with a lid. (I guess I've always figured that they can re-use the box for something. Plus, I never think to keep my shoe boxes!) We always try to put some personal hygiene items in the box, like a bar of soap and washcloth, toothpaste and toothbrush, combs, hair ties for the girl. We also put in something like a note pad and pencils, crayons, stickers, little toys, things like that. It's a lot of fun to do, and we're able to get most of the things at the dollar store. (I'd like to shop elsewhere for it, someplace like Walgreen's or Target, because sometimes it feels chintzy, but it's a budget issue at this time. I keep telling myself that, once we're out of debt, we'll have the freedom to give more. As Dave Ramsey says, "Live like no one else so later you can give like no one else!")
Reilly and Declan always seem to have such fun picking out what they pack in their box. You pay a small fee to cover shipping cost, and last year, we paid it online so we could find out where the boxes went - Mexico. I'm a little bummed this year, because we didn't actually get to DO this tradition, and it's the first time since Reilly was about four or five that we've missed it. Our niece got married the weekend they were due and, of course, I hadn't done it EARLY (Heaven forbid!), but I'm sure we'll get back in the swing next year.

Traditions - December 5th - Christmas Dishes

This tradition is going to be shorter, seeing as how I just wrote a REALLY long post all about our Christmas movies, and I don't want to bore you to tears during this time of Yuletide joy!
The actual tradition du jour for the 5th of December is my Christmas dishes. Several years ago, my mom bought for us a set of Christmas dishes - white with holly leaves and berries around the edge. The set came with dinner plates, salad plates, bowls, tea cups and saucers. It's just beautiful!Then, last year, she bought another set for me. It's not exactly the same, which I love. The one Martha Stewart-esque thing about me is a love of setting an eclectic table with mismatched dishes. (Probably because, most of the time, we're missing a dish or two because I've broken them. Necessity is the mother of eccentricity!) The newer dishes are rimmed in green and have a Christmas tree in the middle.
The very best thing about these dishes are that they are really for every day use. And that's where the tradition comes in. I pack away most of our regular dishes and mugs, and we use our Christmas dishes for the entire Christmas season. (They're dishwasher safe, which makes it that much easier! I'm not sure this tradition would have stood the test of time if I had to hand-wash everything!)

Traditions - December 4th - Let's Go to the Movies!

Hee hee, I just KNEW I was going to skip a day by accident! I thought about writing several times yesterday, but we were pretty busy and I just flat forgot! Oh well, I'm sure that it won't be the last time this season.

December 4th - So, yesterday I was going to talk about movies - Christmas movies, to be exact! (Duh, Lisa, what other kind of movies would you be talking about in a post about CHRISTMAS traditions?)  I remember, waaay back when I was a kid, we had to wait and hope and pray that we would just happen to see a preview for "Charlie Brown's Christmas" or "Frosty the Snowman" or that stop-action version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer so that we could try to remember to watch it when it came on TV. Sometimes we'd remember and get to watch the whole thing. Sometimes we'd miss the first part of the movie, which is why I was an adult before I realized that the reason that elf knew how to take the teeth out of the Abomidable Snowman was because he really wanted to be an elf dentist and not an elf toy maker. Because of that, and because they began to make such great Christmas movies, I decided that I wanted to start a collection.
I think that the first Christmas movie I bought was "The Polar Express", because that was the first movie Reilly ever saw in a theater. It was followed quickly by "Scrooge", which is, in my humble opinion, the very best version of  "A Christmas Carol" ever made and none other will ever compare. Not even "The Muppet's Christmas Carol", although it comes in a close second. I mean, it's just not the same without the rousing rendition of "December the 25th"!  Over the years, I've purchased all three of the "Santa Clause" movies, "The Miracle on 34th Street" - the new one with the cute girl from "Mrs. Doubtfire", Jim Carey's "The Grinch", as well as many others. I try to buy a new one each year, so our collection keeps on growing. This year, I actually bought two: "Mickey's Christmas Carol" and "Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas". Next year, I already know I'm going to buy "Arthur Christmas" because we went and saw it on Saturday and I LOVED it!

Traditions - December 3rd - The Big Countdown

The tradition of the day is...*drumroll*...ADVENT CALENDARS! Years ago, my mom bought us a cloth Advent calendar, shaped like Santa, with little pockets for each day of December. Over the years, a variety of candy found its way into the pockets - Lifesavers, York Peppermint Patties, those little gold-wrapped chocolate coins. This year its Andes mints and little, tiny Reese's Christmas trees.
Side note: I was REALLY glad that there weren't too many peanut butter trees and Andes mints left over after I filled the calendar this year. I love Reese's candy with a passion that's almost obsessive, and Andes mints are a close second. It has taken every ounce of my self control not to empty the Advent calendar, scarf the candy, and blame it on the dog.
In addition to that calendar, we have a snowman with a candy cane that is moved from day to day, a Playmobil "Santa's Post Office" calendar with a new piece to add to the scene each day, and a Christmas ornament that we flip over each day to count down. PLUS, my mom got each of the kids one of the calendars that has a little chocolate behind each day. As it stands, there's NO WAY that this family won't know how many days are left until Christmas!

Traditions: December 1st and 2nd - Pastries and Lights and Soup! Oh, My!

I love traditions. I mean, almost obsessively love traditions. So much so that it feels like the world tilts on its axis a bit if we can't DO one of them. Back in November, Troy mentioned watching a new Christmas movie that we had gotten and I said, "NO! It's a tradition that we don't watch a Christmas movie until Thanksgiving night, after the 'lights on' at the Square!" (More on that later...) He looked a little confused and remarked that he didn't really recall that that was a tradition. I realized that, so far, we had done that ONCE because we didn't have anyone join us for "lights on". (Apparently, doing something that I enjoy ONCE turns it into a tradition to me!)

So, I am challenging myself this December to share one of our family holiday traditions with you (all four of you!) each day. Some might be long standing traditions, some might be a little more recently added, (like the movie thing!) but they will all be things that I look forward to doing to usher in the Christmas season.

Since it's December 2nd and I only had this brilliant idea about five minutes ago, I'll share TWO with you today. (Hey, bonus! Two for the price of one! Yippee!)

Tradition Number 1: Thanksgiving Butter Braid - In this part of the U.S., many organizations sell Butter Braids as a fundraiser. Reilly's American Heritage Girl troop sold them a couple of years ago, and I was hooked. Butter Braids are frozen filled pastries that you put in the (cold) oven overnight to rise overnight, and then bake in the morning. I get one for Thanksgiving morning and one for Christmas morning!

Tradition Number 2: Lights On at the Square, plus Corn Soup: On Thanksgiving night, there is a high-society outdoor shopping center (I'll call it The Square) that lights all of their trees at once, officially starting the Christmas shopping season. We go at 6:30 when they start singing carols and then, at 7:00, Santa arrives and flips the switch to illuminate the night. Then we come home and eat corn soup and bread sticks! Sometimes we have friends join us for this end-of-Thanksgiving tradition, sometimes it's just us. This year, since I was sick, was the first year since 1998 that we couldn't go to The Square. :(