Christmas Traditions

Last year, we bought our first house and moved in just days before Christmas. We had lived with people for most of our marriage, so we hadn't been able create any of our own traditions! This year, we started those! Today, we decorated our Christmas tree and talked about what Christmas really means! We do things a little bit differently that the majority of America does. We tell our kids that Santa is not a real man (we do teach them about St. Nick and all the wonderful things he did and that he is the man Santa is based on), but as far as Santa coming down our chimney and eating our cookies and leaving gifts, we do not tell them that and we don't do gifts from Santa. We tell them the real meaning of Christmas, which is Jesus and we talk about his birth and why it is important. We do decorate a Christmas tree, we have taken pictures with Santa and we do give gifts, but we just explain to them that we just do all of that stuff for fun and it is not what Christmas is actually about and we try to mix in things about Jesus in all of these things that we do. Some people may find this odd, but we really believe it is important to teach our kids at a young age about Jesus, and see this as a huge opportunity. This is really the first year that the girls are actually understanding it all, especially Riley, so it is pretty cool to see her grasping all of this! (Plus, our girls will never have the let down of finding out Santa is not real and feeling like we lied to them! My parents always told us the truth, and I don't have that traumatic experience of someone telling me he is not real and am very grateful to my parents for this!).
Anyways, here are some pictures of some of the traditions we are starting!

We first read the story of Christ being born.


Riley was being Christmas!

We were listening to Christmas music and so daddy danced with all his girls! (Me included, but we didn't get a picture of that!)



Hanging ornaments!


You have to have a picture of the tree with your kids in front of it!



Josh made this when he was a kid!


These are some of my favorite ornaments! Our tree is mostly decorated with the ornaments that were mine as a child!









Daddy made homemade queso!