Celebrating Christmas, version 4.7

Like lots of moms, I struggle with how to celebrate that big giant holiday at the end of December. It has felt overwhelming for a long time, pretty much since I had two little boys born the week before Christmas, adding their birthday celebrations to the mix, along with my mother-in-law's and my father's. Buying presents for all my relatives for all the big events in December can be a stress factory. I have tried different ways to "celebrate Christmas" and haven't been totally satisfied with any of them.

Jan and his fiancee, Sallie.

This year is potentially more overwhelming because my second son is getting married 4 days after Christmas in California. His birthday is a week before Christmas so he is going to have all his big holidays within 11 days! We're excited for both of them though.

As soon as they got officially engaged September 24th I knew I had to go into high-speed. So I made a list for both the wedding and Christmas and I've been working on it ever since. I also let go of my ideals of getting the perfect presents or perfect anything. And I keep reminding myself of that.

Here it is, November 28th. How am I feeling? At this exact moment, actually pretty good. Maybe I'm delusional but it's feeling doable. I've figured out my gifts for just about everybody and they're mostly purchased. The gifts I have to mail (including our missionary's) have been shipped. The clothes for the wedding are mostly ready, except for my dress which is in progress. I'm sewing it, my friend is helping me, and I'm hopeful that it's going to look okay. There's still a lot to do but I'm hopeful it will happen.

Today we put up our Christmas tree--probably the earliest ever. It helped put me in the Christmas spirit. We put up our many nativity sets and tomorrow we'll start celebrating Advent. I'm hopeful that this year maybe I'll find the right combination for our Christmas celebration.

Talmage doing a selfie.

Comments

Do Dots Family System

The original post was written in January of 2015. I wrote an update at the bottom of this post in March 2021. A few months ago, a friend of mine told me about something she was doing in her family to help her family function better. Her teenage autistic son had been struggling a lot so they had been working with behavior therapists to help him and this "Do Dots Family System" had been recommended. As she described it, I was greatly intrigued since it sounded like something I wanted to implement at my own house. I looked into it and decided to purchase it right after Thanksgiving. Here is my review of how it has worked for us over the last six weeks or so. The basic idea of the chart is that children need to take care of their responsibilities before they get any privileges. It strongly reinforces the concept of "Work Before Play" . The chart helps children see in a very visual way that, until they have completed their responsibilities, they are on Le...

Hansen Family Reunion 2024, Thursday afternoon

For lunch on Thursday, Lauren and Kurt made Cafe Rio which was delicious. On Thursday afternoon, we had free time at the lake. Heidi and Aaron rented a pontoon boat and took people out for rides. This was very popular. Some of us went on the kayaks and/or swimming or just hung out on the beach.

2024 Hansen Family Reunion, Wednesday

Recently we had another Hansen Family Reunion at Bear Lake. We've been having these destination reunions since 2008. There were about 70 of us in attendance. Bruce and Michelle organized the activities and did a good job. I enjoyed myself! Hopefully lots of other people did too. We showed up on Wednesday afternoon and enjoyed a taco salad dinner, served by Neil and Kristie's family. We also worked on two mixer games: a word search with the names of all 100 Hansen family members as well as a Bingo card that involved finding people with different attributes like recent high school graduation, birthdays in certain months, etc. The word search was definitely the most popular. Also popular was playing Nine-Square and Sandy Pickle (a cross between pickle ball and badminton). Thys and Katrina might have won! After dinner, we had an FHE activity/lesson. Liz had made a book with stories of the first ancestors to join the church. She had selected different stories for us to act out in g...

Search This Blog