Let’s Get Christmasy!

I must admit that as soon as Thanksgiving is over, I start to feel a bit overwhelmed with all there is to do for Christmas. Anyone else? My social battery runs low with back-to-back events, and I get a little saddened by the commercialization of the season. Last week, after a couple of days of near panic, I voiced my concerns to my husband, pulled myself together, and made the prayerful decision to focus on two things: Embrace the season with its flurry of activity while pulling away each day for quiet advent reflection. I’ll share on advent in another post, but today I’m sharing some of our activities from our first week of December.

We got our tree and decked the halls! The cat is so happy to have the Christmas decorations back. I think this is her favorite time of year.

We had a Christmas party with our field trip co-op and it was great fun! I’ll share more tomorrow. I won’t post the photo of our kiddos (They are so cute. And so many!), but here’s one of the hardworking mamas.

And a little sneak preview of an ornament we made.

Living close enough to our daughter’s college allows us to enjoy her performances on campus. There’s nothing like festive Christmas music to put us in the holiday spirit, and this concert certainly delivered all the Christmas feels. My girl performed in three ensembles (a duet, chorus, & concert band) and she M.C.’d the event! She and her roommate sang “Sisters” from the movie White Christmas and nailed it! It was quite enjoyable.

Another benefit to living close to campus is being able to have our daughter’s friends over for meals. Saturday, she and I hosted her friends from the Great Books counsel for a Christmas lunch. College kids are very easy to please when it comes to food and they simply requested a taco bar, so we put out the spread!

Our little downtown put on a Dickens Christmas this weekend, so we walked around Saturday night with the lights and cookies and all the shopkeepers dressed in period costume!

Speaking of Dickens, my teen daughter and I have been (separately) reading A Christmas Carol for her literature course. I’ve enjoyed quiet moments by the Christmas tree, soaking up this holiday classic. The cat loves to sit with anyone who is reading a book. She’s so funny.

Merry Christmas, everyone!