Christmas: Old and New (2011)

Happy belated posting!


Life has been nuts lately (as you might have noticed from my lack of posting…), but we are starting to settle down a bit. From the 3rd of December until now, we have attended multiple Christmas parties, deep cleaned our LIFE, watched sweet friend’s little ones, made cookies with awesome neighbors, Christmas shopped-wrapped-created, watched the snow fall faster-harder-thicker, our baby grow up and enjoyed the company of good friends. Phew!

But all-in-all, this has been an incredible month.

We have made both new memories and kept some old...

Here is a little taste of an Alaskan Thornbury Christmas!

1. New: we cut down our own tree!

Eli is loving this new tradition

We search for the perfect mini tree...

And we found it!

The mountain man ready to slay his tree:

He swings...

He proudly presents the kill:

I love this man:

2. Old: We made an event of decorating our tree

(not the same one in the picture... this one was from Lowes!)

Our spread:

'hungry people' faces:

Putting the ornaments on

Breaking to play with the baby ;)

Our kids ;)

Family Photo! 

The crew: 

Kisses!

Daddy's little gal

And the stockings were hang (on our new cheap shelf...)...

... with hopes that St. Nicolas would soon be here!

3. Made a cookie platter for the neighbors! YUM YUM!

4. Old (and New): Celebrated Christmas Day (just the four of us!)

Something we have desired to give more thought to this month is the season of Christ’s arrival many years ago on earth. As we think about our traditions and what it is communicating about what we believe is true about this season, we want our children to grow up knowing that the season isn’t about meeting their greed but about meeting their needs… the greatest being Christ.

After this Christmas, we have decided we are going to start a new family tradition of how Christmas goes down.
As you will see on my craft update portion (to be posted later), I made an advent calendar (did I get to use it this year? Of course not… maybe next season). In each pocket/envelope, there is something to think about/focus on to remind us the true meaning of the season: Christ and Us.

Us?

Yes, us. This season is about us because Jesus came for us: his people. People then, people now, people to come. He came to give us true life and hope in Him. We should really take time to savor that in this season and worship Him for His great sacrifice to come for us at all. He had it good where he was.

On with the advent calendar idea….

Our nativity has remained empty up until this point. The figures are all in bags that hang on the calendar. Since we have failed to do one daily, we took each one out this morning and, after the Christmas story, we discussed how each relate to the Christmas story and how we can learn something from each. It was a lot of fun to get the responses we did from one another (especially since my husband is such a goof ball! Always an interesting response at stake….)

We also decided to also put our gifts under the nativity so we can better remember why we can celebrate these blessings in JOY! It was a great idea since our shelves are so empty anyways.

Afterwards, we made coffee cake and started listening to some John Piper teachings that my brother-in-law sent us. It was really good… before we had to turn it off to grab our little baby, who finally woke up! It was great!

The coffee cake

(Recipe will be posted later!)

Some highlights from the morning:

Our winter wonderland

The excitement...

...Cannot be compared.

Don't worry.. He was only like that for a split second before Santa came....

...with these!

Brand New Cross Country skis!

Then Santa (AKA: The Hasslers') brought ME these!!! 

(Thank you guys-- I'm thrilled!)

Eli even got a yummy Christmas treat from Santa:

A pirouline in his yummy Kirland dog food!

Isn't he lucky ;) ?

Remember how I told you I couldn't think of a topper for the tree?

Well, I found the PERFECT solution:

Isn't she perfect?

I think I will hang her up there every year!

Stocking time!

She got a Snoopy...

(Daddy is so excited for her!)

And a beautiful keepsake ornament..

She really likes it

... but is kind of ready for us to stop taking pictures of her while she gets a nap in.

THIS GIFT OPENING PROCESS IS OVERWHELMING !

After a nap, it was time to move on to the gifts: 

Elyse was daddy's first and FAVORITE gift

Elyse preferred her lambie:

Giving kisses and hugs to her cuddly friend:

She got a moose from daddy:

And she enjoyed eating the boxes the most:

That's all for now! We had such a good time with this Christmas season and I am so excited to make these little fun moments our family traditions while our family grows year after year.