Christmas

So we were shopping on November 1st and we both realized that Christmas has officially hit the stores. Every year I am amazed how Halloween decorations and treats are whisked to the back of stores overnight and suddenly the Christmas music is playing and there are decorated trees to greet customers.

You know that I love Christmas, even the music and decorations in stores. But I've never liked the whole commercial aspect of Christmas (and Easter too). The other day I was wandering through Home Sense to see people in a buying frenzy over Christmas decorations, it's hardly November, how can this be happening I ask myself. So David and I have decided to have a little bit of a simpler Christmas this year, trying to keep the commercial aspect to a minimum. I feel like I'm starting to understand my oma and opa a little more each day. There is really nothing that I want. Let's face it, how many of us really remember what we even got last Christmas? Gifts have never been a big thing in my family. When I was young I sometimes wished that we got more gifts or even bigger gifts. But now I am thankful that the whole presents thing wasn't that important in our family. I feel like I am more able to celebrate Christ's birth, what that means for the world, as well as the relationships that I have with family and friends. I feel so thankful that David and I have always been on the same page in this area. I suppose you could say it's just not the way that we both show love or recieve love. That said, I have always treasured the gift of time and the thought put into something special.

I always decorate our house for Christmas on the Remembrance Day long weekend. Normally on this weekend I work on my report cards. Lucky for me I don't have any report cards to write this year, yahoo! Decorating for Christmas always helped make report card writing not that bad. I would write a few sets of comments and pull something out of one of my Christmas bins. I'm such a goal orientated person that this has always seemed to work for me. So this year I will happily decorate without report cards.

For the past five years I have challenged my students to memorize all of Luke 2 (the Christmas story), with the reward being an ice cream party at our house not to mention the gift of knowing the story by heart. Every year I have been blessed by listening to so many children reciete the entire chapter (with no more than 5 errors), consequently I just need to brush up each year myself. So being the beginning of November I figured it's time to start reading Luke 2 again and begin preparing my heart for Christmas. I've been reading/ reciting "Goodnight Moon" to Sarah each night beore I put her to bed. I think that for the next 2 months we'll switch to Luke 2, and hopefully make some kind of tradition of it in our family.

Anyways, just a few more thoughts on Christmas.