Monthly Musings

Linking up with Holly and Patty for Monthly Musings:

1. In December, I celebrate Christmas which means family get togethers on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Then  we celebrate the end of the year on NYE.

2. This is kinda hard for me to quantify. If I had to guess, I´d say a seven? I am looking forward to the celebrations and I love how the house looks right now decked out for Christmas. I am definitely not ready for Christmas but I´ll get there... I gotta get through Friday and then can truly get in Christmas mode. 

3. Chocolate chip pecan pie, caramel brownies, copy cat Honey Baked Ham

4. I like a movie called  8-Bit Christmas- it´s set in the 1980´s and has been described as an 80´s version of A Christmas Story. The boy in 8-Bit is hoping to get a Nintendo for Christmas. It´s funny and heart tugging at the same time (by the end anyway). I also like Christmas Vacation.

5. I had to think hard about this- there are probably a few random traditions but one that came to mind is that on Christmas morning, the kids have their own spots in the living room where they open presents. Speaking of opening presents, not sure that this is random or not but since my husband does not like messes (I don´t like them but they don´t bother me as much as they do him...), the kids know to throw their wrapping paper away almost right away after opening a gift. They ball up the wrapping paper and hand it to Donnie who places it in a black garbage bag that he keeps near him. Also speaking of presents, another low-key tradition is that we save the ribbon that I use to decorate each gift with. So when the kids open a gift, they dispose of their wrapping paper almost right away and they place the ribbon in a pile where I store the ribbon to use next year.

In fact, in looking at some of the ribbon here, it reminds of another tradition that is gift wrap related. My MIL wraps her gifts to us beautifully. It´s from looking at her pretty presents that I began adding ribbon to our presents several years ago. Since my kids are used to saving the ribbons on packages that they open from us, one year a couple of years ago, they asked if they should save the ribbon that their grandma had adorned their presents with and I responded with a hearty, ¨YES!" This green ribbon is salvaged from gifts from her!! 

The kids don´t even untie the ribbon when they begin to unwrap a present- they just slide the ribbon off the presents and that´s how I store the ribbon. Since box sizes are similar year after year, I often look for ribbon that will fit the particular box that I´ve just wrapped. Of course sometimes I get ¨new¨ sizes and I have to get new ribbon for that box. 

Well, that´s more about ribbon than I ever thought I´d write!!

🎀🎀🎀🎀🎀🎀🎀🎀🎀🎀

6. We always host a meal on Christmas Day. Family comes over in the early afternoon. We are not exactly ¨party people¨ so we are not good candidates to host a NYE get together :). Fortunately, we have good friends who love to throw fun parties.

7. At our friends´ house- the ones who throw great parties :).

8. I don´t really make new years resolutions. I may make a few low level goals maybe but that´s it. I´ve never done a word of the year. I´m too wordy. I´d have to do several :). 

9. I like a mixture of upbeat secular Christmas songs and meaningful/beautiful reverent hymns. 

I like Michael Buble´s Christmas music- Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas comes on first when I play my Buble playlist and I like that song a lot! Sweet lyrics/message.

As for hymns/Christian carols, I really like O Holy Night, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, The Little Drummer Boy, O Come All Ye Faithful

10. Favorite memory- this is hard. I´m just going to say generically when we are all sitting together near the tree on Christmas morning. Donnie reads an exert from the Bible about Jesus´ birth. We eat cinnamon rolls and then we start opening presents. Extended family comes later in the day which is fun but there´s something special about family time with just us. I hope that my kids find a special someone to spend the rest of their lives with and realize that if/when that happens, our Christmas morning tradition will change. I think (hope!) I will be ok with that. Change is inevitable and by the time a child is old enough to be married, parents have gone through lots of changes of season with their child(ren) and changing Christmas traditions will just be one of many things that change. 

Now if/when they get married and want to spend Christmas morning in ¨their¨ spot (we´ll find room for the spouse 😆), I couldn´t imagine objecting, LOL. 

These were fun questions to think about and answer! A week from now is the big day... Looking forward to it but goodness do I have A  LOT to do before now and then. Hopefully I will make the time to write some between now and then :).