Monday, December 16, 2013

{12 Days of Christmas Traditions} Day Eight: Wrapping


I LOVE wrapping presents.  And like I mentioned in this post, one day I hope to take on Melanie's tradition and have a girls weekend with my sister and sister-in-laws where we get all of our shopping and wrapping done in one fell swoop.  But while I live in Scotland, I depend on my friend The Internet for the shopping part.  As far as wrapping goes, I try to wrap a little each night so that on Christmas Eve, I'm not up till 2 am like I was last year.  I don't want to be super tired on Christmas morning while my kids are feverishly undoing all of my hard wrapping work!  Christmas Eve is for stuffing stockings and putting out Santa's gift, not wrapping my own!  Here is our tree so far.  I'm about halfway there, but the other half is coming on an airplane with my in-laws tomorrow!

All of the presents are way back behind the tree so as to not tempt little hands

I wanted to share a few wrapping traditions I've borrowed from other bloggers (plus a few of my own):

Blogger Tip #1
Shay's organizational tips for wrapping: put all of your wrapping tools in a tote bag, so it's easy to haul to the living room each night for wrapping while watching cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies (I've slightly tweaked her method).




You'll notice that I have packing tape in my tote.  That would be because I wrap all of my kids gifts inside of a cardboard box (usually leftover from an Amazon order though some are actually moving boxes!).  I do this for a few reasons:

#1 My kids are little and shiny packages are hard to resist.  Avery's already opened one present, but since the toys are inside a plain cardboard box,  I have those few extra seconds to catch her before she gets the box open and ruins the surprise for Christmas morning.

#2 Original toy packaging is usually a weird shape, is awkward to wrap, and can induce feelings like this on Christmas morning. So if you take the toy out of the box, put it in a plain cardboard box, and then wrap it, you've killed two birds with one stone.  You just have to remember a good pair of scissors on Christmas morning to get through the packing tape.

Also in my tote:
--wrapping paper
--scissors
--regular tape
--double stick tape for when I want to be ultra perfectionist wrapper
--tulle for bows - you can get tulle by the roll super cheap at big discount party suppliers like Arne's for you Houston people - it's a much better value than fancy wire Christmas bows (though I LOVE those too) and it's very easy to make your bow look pretty without taking a lot of time


--gift tags from Costco (taken out of the box and put in a ziplock):


I buy gift tags that I can tie on my presents instead of the stick-on kind.  This way, I can reuse the ones for our immediate family each Christmas instead of buying new tags every year.  For our wider family, I buy inexpensive ornaments to use as tags and write with a sharpie on the back of them.  This is probably only something I will do while living in Scotland since even though they come from a store that is basically the British equivalent of Walmart, they come all the way from Scotland which increases their value significantly.

--Christmas tissue paper:


I like to wrap toddler gifts in tissue paper instead of wrapping paper because it's easier for them to tear into. I use the blindingly gold sheet as the bottom layer because you can see through tissue paper if you only use one layer.  And I think the gold is ugly, so this way it gets used without me having to look at it. Naturally my kids think it's the best paper we have.  (Hopefully they will grow out of this...)


Blogger Tip#2:
My all time favorite tip for wrapping comes from Emily (though I can't find her original post).  Emily has 6 kids.  Her youngest is Avery's age and her oldest is still in elementary school.  Needless to say, she needs a system, and she has a really fun one.  She wraps her gifts ahead of time like I do, but since more than half of her kids can read, she doesn't put tags on her gifts.  She chooses a different roll of wrapping paper for each kid and wraps all of their gifts in that one paper. This way her kids can't snoop!  When she stuffs their stockings Christmas Eve, she puts a square of each kid's wrapping paper in the bottom of their stocking so they know which presents belong to them.  And for those of you Crazies who take the time to wrap each of your Santa stocking presents, you could just use their wrapping paper on those presents too to tip them off though clever kids might put two and two together and well you know I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus and all that...but this isn't my problem because in my world, Santa is too busy making toys to wrap them too, but I'll talk more about this on Tuesday when I do my post for Day Nine: How We Do Santa.

Do you have any wrapping tips?



Tuesday, December 10, 2013

{12 Days of Christmas Traditions} Day Seven: Christmas Shirts



Ok, this tradition isn't very intentional about pointing our kids to Jesus, but it is fun!  And it supports my friend Andrea, so it's intentional in that way.  Andrea owns an Etsy shop and does lots of cute monogrammed things for babies and kids.  She started her shop after her first child was born (she now has 3 cute kiddos!).  Her husband and I taught at the same school way back when!  The pumpkin shirts you saw on my kids in previous posts were also from her shop, as are their St. Patrick's Day and birthday shirts I do each year to go with their party theme (Avery will get this one this year:)), and if you've ever received a baby gift from me, Andrea probably made it!

Once they're big enough for a shirt instead of a onesie, I always order a size up so it will last for 2 years.  Seth's shirt is the one I bough for him 2 years ago (size 2) .  He also has one from last year with Santa on it (size 3).  Avery's is a size 2.

The kids love their shirts though getting a photo of both of them with their reindeers visible was harder than I bargained for!  


you want us to look at the camera?


what if I just smile instead?

Oh, you're trying to take a picture of his reindeer?

Or mine?
Look Mom, I'm smiling and looking!

This is as good as it gets people.
Note to self, do not schedule professional family photos when you have toddlers.
Here are the links to the previous traditions if you missed any:

Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six

Monday, December 9, 2013

{12 Days of Christmas Traditions} Day Six: Jesse Tree


First off, Avery found Buddy (our "Elf on the Shelf")  - she's a big fan.  Taylor put him inside of a roll of toilet paper yesterday, and she thought that was the funniest thing ever.  I love that we don't have to be super elaborate with where we hide him because apparently even sitting behind a picture frame is super special. :)




We're onto Day Six: Our Jesse Tree.  Halfway done, but at this rate I won't finish 12 before Christmas.  (Psst - there might not even be 12 things...we'll see!) But this one is the best for keeping our hearts focused on Jesus' birth this Christmas season instead of presents!

And how appropriate because the other day Avery came up to me and said, "I want presents!" I couldn't believe this was coming out of my 20 month old's mouth.  Especially since this is only her second Christmas and I'm pretty sure all she can remember of her first was well, nothing.  I was quickly relieved when the next thing out her mouth was, "I want cake!" And I realized she had seen the birthday gift I had set out on our hall bookcase so that I would remember to deliver it later that day to a friend. Ha! She cracks me up.  I wish you could hear how she says presents, it's so cute. But I digress...

Growing up, my mom implemented the Jesse Tree as our advent calendar of sorts, and it is my favorite tradition that we do with our kids.  (If I lived in Houston, I'd dig out an old photo from my parents house displaying our Jesse Tree and my unfortunate 1980s hair choices.) I know it will get better and better as they get older and can understand it more (the Jesse Tree tradition not my hair, though I have to say it's much improved from that severely misguided perm), but basically each day we go through part of the old testament anticipating the coming Messiah and watching God's plan for mankind unfold. It begins with a tender shoot of hope,

"A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch (Jesus!) will bear fruit.  
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him - the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord."  
Isaiah 11:1-2 (NIV) 

When the kingly line of David seems to have ended, when it seems that God's promise in the Old Testament of a Messiah has been forgotten, a shoot springs up.

Each evening (or morning and evening when we get behind!!), we look at the scriptures together as a family using Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree ebook as a guide, tracing God's plan for Jesus' advent into our world.  There is a corresponding ornament to go with each day that the kids take turns hanging on our Jesse Tree.  Click on my sidebar link to get to Ann's site, A Holy Experience - in year's past, if you follow her blog, you can have access to this Jesse Tree devotional.  I'm not sure if that is still the case, but she has it in book form here and you can still get free printable Jesse Tree ornaments from her website.

Seth hanging the ram ornament representing God's faithfulness to Abraham
when he provides a ram for Isaac on Mt. Moriah

Avery checking out the snake and apple ornament representing the fall of man
and God's plan for rescuing us 




If you missed our first few days of traditions, here are the links!

Day One: A Christmas Playlist
Day Two: Elf on the Shelf
Day Three: Christmas Book Countdown
Day Four: Christmas Movies
Day Five: Christmas Shopping

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

{12 Days of Christmas Traditions} Day Five: Christmas Shopping and A Giveaway


Not my giveaway, but Shay and Sheaffer's.  It's a $500 gift card to Nordstrom - get on it (especially if you're not finished Christmas shopping)! Click here to enter.

I'm back after an unplanned hiatus thanks to Thanksgiving shenanigans and a head cold! Below are my previous posts if you're interested.

Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four

Day Five: Christmas Shopping

Ok, so it's December 3rd, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have passed - did you get any good deals? I definitely took advantage - yay for the internet giving me the ability to shop from the UK at US stores in my pjs with a cup of coffee and Christmas music of my choosing!  Incidentally, I made all of my Christmas songs from Day One (plus a few extra!) into one playlist on youtube - click here if you want it.  I am almost finished with my Christmas shopping - whew!

Christmas can be EXPENSIVE, so I try to plan ahead as much as possible; that way when Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around, I know what I'm looking for.  I also research ahead of time to check out prices so I know what really is a deal when things go on sale. Otherwise I get super overwhelmed and either buy things that I didn't plan on or freeze up and don't buy anything at all. I also keep my eyes open all year so that when things go on sale or I find a treasure at TJ Maxx in October (Air Lighting McQueen marked down from 55 GBP to 16 GBP - yes, please!) or a garage sale/car boot sale in May (Buzz Lightyear for 2 GBP instead of  67 GBP - are you kidding me?!) Here is a useful and free printable I found on Pinterest to organize myself (I need all the help I can get!).  I'd post mine, but I don't want to give any presents away:).

I also love Melanie's tradition for Christmas shopping.  Basically she grabs her best friend, they send their husbands and children to the ranch for the weekend, and they knock out all of their shopping AND wrapping in a fun girls weekend, but you should read her account because she's hilarious.  I can't wait to do this tradition with my sister and sisters-in-law if I ever live in the same city as any of them!  Maybe next year...

I realize this post would've been more helpful BEFORE Black Friday, but as I mentioned above, it wasn't possible.  I am just now recovering from celebrating Thanksgiving twice last week! Taylor commented last night, "Thanksgiving leftovers again for dinner?" He's not a fan of Thanksgiving - turkey in particular.  I told him he's not going to be excited about my weekly meal plan because it looks like this.




If you have any great turkey recipes so I can change it up at all, please leave me the recipe in the comment section!


Here's a peek into our Thanksgiving weekend:

Indoctrinating our Scottish friends!

Avery takes after Daddy and isn't a big Thanksgiving food fan

Thankful for pigtails and dressing them up Christmas-y for church
now that it's December!

Thankful for these Turkeys!
Thankful for Taylor's old pea coat!

Thankful he loves people so much.
His favorite past time after church is
greeting all of our church family coming for the second service.
Thankful for the best daddy and husband ever!

Thankful for our flat!

Happy (late) Thanksgiving!


I'll be back tomorrow talking about our Jesse Tree Tradition!

Love,
robs