You just have to play in the snow

This is Christmas week.  I don't know of very many people that are 'ready', except my oldest sister. But really, are we ever ready?  There is always one more gift to buy, one more thing we could bake and at some point we all say, I'm done!  Not doing anything else!  We feel we can't slow down.

This week we are in Estes Park, Colorado.  My grand kids have been several times in the summer but never in the winter.  Since they live in Texas, they rarely see snow...real snow...snow that falls all evening and into the night!  Imagine their excitement.

When they asked (late at night) if they could put on their snowsuits and go out and play, it was ever so tempting to say, No, wait until the morning.  It's too late, it's too cold!  In fact, I think a couple of the adults tried to talk them out of it.  Being the Grandma though I trumped the other adults.  (This one time.)  We got all bundled up and went out and made a few snow angels, threw a little snow, froze, came back inside.  And yes, it took longer to get all dressed and undressed than it did to actually be outside.

I would do it again because it was "THE BEST night",  all 5 minutes of it.   Would I have gone out by myself?  Absolutely
not.  Did I have time?  I didn't think so.  But it takes little kids to remind us to slow down and just go out in the snow.  Whatever I was going to do during that 5 minutes didn't get done.  I don't even remember what I was going to do.  It's not important.

This holiday break, don't tell your kids to wait.   Go play that game.   Go for that walk.  Read that book.  All the important stuff you need to do will wait.  I promise!

Are you stressed yet?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!   Not only by things around me but by the Facebook posts and comments from friends.  It truly breaks my heart to see and hear young moms stressed about getting everything done in these last few days before Christmas.  A friend of my daughter's posted that she would not be sending out Christmas cards and she was terribly sorry and hoped everyone understood.  (She has three young boys.) REALLY?  If people don't understand they don't have kids and I say, take them off the list!  Better yet, let them babysit so you can get your cards done.  This will be the third year I haven't gotten mine done and my kids are grown!  I have good intentions but life gets in the way.

If  you watch any television you will be reminded once again how everything should be perfect. Today I heard that we should all be wrapping gifts for individual people according to their interests. So, for Parker I should be drawing Spiderman on all his presents.  Zoey's presents should have a Frozen theme.  I did that one year before kids.  Guess what, the gifts were all ripped open and nobody saved the beautiful, clever construction paper applique I had made.  Today, I wrapped gifts and slapped sticky gift tags on each one -  didn't even have bows.  We travel and I am tired of the bows getting squashed.  I can promise you, everyone will love their gifts just as much.

Teacher gifts were always stressful to me.  Will they like it, should I have done more, what is everyone else doing?  If you are thinking, "Oh $^%3, I didn't think about teacher gifts, don't worry about it!   My favorite teacher gifts were the ones children made or picked out.  I still have the ornaments a student made my first year of teaching.  She cut them out herself and they were out of pink and green felt!   Love them.  Then there was the year a child made an 'ornament' for me which was aluminum foil crumpled into a ball.  That was it!  He said he knew I would love it and I did.  My nephew, one year gave his teacher a shoebox full of his favorite things.  She loved it.   My husband always loved when I got baked goods, I don't bake.  If the teacher is any good, she will love whatever it is because she will realize it is sent in love.  Parker made a card for his teacher, I know she will love it, i would.

What is more important than having the perfect tree and getting your cards out is being 'present' with your children.   Read Christmas and other holiday books to them.  Watch a Christmas special on television.  Snuggle up and drink hot chocolate together.  Make some cards or write a letter to a friend.  Facetime with family.

Christmas is a time for family, so enjoy your family.  They will be grown before you know it.  And, trust me, they really aren't into snuggling and drinking hot chocolate with you when they are 20 something.

Jesus had pets and only one fairy???

Over the weekend I was reminded how young children try to make everything 'fit' their background knowledge.  I always say they have only been on this earth a short time and they spend a great deal of that time trying to make sense of the world. Which I might add is very confusing.

Zoey, my 4 year old grand nugget helped me get out some of my nativity sets.  I was explaining to her who everyone was.  She was quite interested.  I thought I did an exceptional job explaining the birth story! There was one that I let her 'play' with, setting it up and resetting it.  She started explaining to her big brother, Parker,  that the camel, donkey and sheep were pets.  Who knew, Jesus had pets!  She then asked me why there was only one fairy, some of you might refer to it as an angel.  What made me realize, she was four and my great explanation didn't really sink in was when later she asked me if she could put my 'doll' set up again.  So after my great nativity explanation, she came away with the nativity is a doll set, some kid named Jesus with pets and one fairy.  Hmmm.

After I laughed a little I reminded myself that it's okay.  It is very difficult to understand that magical story.  The lines get blurred between the religious Christmas celebration and Santa arriving.  And, I'm sorry, they can see Santa at every turn so my guess is they believe that better than some baby with pets.  I mean, does anyone ever get pictures taken with Jesus?

To be fair, Zoey and Parker are in a blended family of Christian and Jewish traditions so it does get a little confusing.  But even in single faith families it is confusing.  It's hard to believe what we can't see.   Heavens, I still find it hard to believe how the computer and cell phones work and that has been explained to me many, many times!

So my point is if you want your child to understand the true meaning of Christmas, you have to explain it to them...year after year after year after year until one year it will make sense.  You have to make sure you model and differentiate between Christmas the religious time and Christmas the Santa/gift getting time.   They really are two very different things. Christmas is a season that goes until January 6th.  So if you spout Jesus is the reason for the season, can you really let superstition take over and take your Christmas decorations down the day after Christmas?

Enjoy this holiday season whatever your beliefs and realize that young children are experiencing it through their eyes and understanding.  It really is okay if they think Jesus had pets and only one fairy.
One day, maybe years from now, they will put it all together.   But if it is important to you that they know the difference between the two celebrations, you better model it.

Put the elf back on the shelf and relax!

This is that time of year when everyone goes crazy.  As a parent, this was the time of year that, if I didn't feel inferior already, I quickly did.  Back when my kids were young we didn't even have Elf on the Shelf and I still felt like a failure as a parent.

Each year I had visions of Hallmark moments of decorating the tree.  You know, everyone sipping hot chocolate, Christmas music playing softly in the background, while everyone cheerfully hanging the ornaments on the tree.  Or sometimes I dreamed of all of us getting in the car, so excited to go see Christmas lights around town and coming home to share that hot chocolate.

Typically what happened over the years was me getting the ornaments out, and bribing everyone to please just hang up one ornament, that's all, then you can go back to whatever it is you were doing. My son would sometimes just hang all his ornaments on one branch and declare he was through.  Looking at lights around town usually ended up with me and my husband not speaking to each other.  He would zoom past streets as I would say, there's a pretty street, oh never mind, you went by it, oops there is a good...oh never mind you can't turn around. My husband would drive and tell the kids to get back in their seat belts because he was driving.   Of course, they couldn't see out the window!  Forget about the hot chocolate!

I always tried to find the best, most interactive Advent calendar for my kids.  The favorite was the one with the little chocolate pieces behind each door.  I built up the anticipation only to find out they would wait several days and open several so they could eat more chocolate at a time.   Not quite the experience I envisioned.

I overheard a mom the other day tell her friend how she hated this time of year.  I thought how sad, this should be so much fun.  It is incredible to watch young children at this time of year and their excitement. I wish this excitement and good cheer lasted all year.

Instead of trying to out do your Facebook friends on where the elf is, take a step back and relax.  The things that are the most memorable won't be what you think.  Several years ago Emily asked me to wait until she got home to make the holiday candy.   Of course I did, thinking how sweet, she wants us to do it together  The night arrived and I started the festive cooking.   She sat.  Finally I said, I thought you wanted to help?  She replied, NO!  I just love sitting in the kitchen visiting while YOU make it. 

Here are some things you can do with your kids that will build memories and nobody will try to out do you on Facebook .

• Have them open a new book each day leading up to Christmas
• Clean out their toys and give them to a charity before they get new ones
• Make cookies for someone else
• Just go out and sing Christmas songs to the neighbors
• Adopt an angel from the Salvation Army tree as a family and shop together
• Buy a toy for one of the agencies collecting toys and go as a family
  
  to donate them
• Get some gloves, scarves, blankets and walk around town handing them out to homeless people
• Choose a day and tell everyone you meet, Merry Christmas

It defeats the purpose if we get so stressed we don't enjoy our family and friends.  We need to stop and slow down and enjoy each other.

In the meantime, put the elf on the shelf or better yet let your kids take turns putting him somewhere. I know, he is supposed to be 'watching' them to make sure they behave.  But maybe he could use some help hiding and we could all behave just because.  And,  if you really enjoy doing it, do it but keep it simple and realize your kids probably won't remember all the great places you hid him.