To Santa or Not to Santa?

I have been seeing a lot of these posts around the blog world lately and for obvious reasons....it is Christmas time. Nonetheless, this is something that has been on our minds and a recent post by a friend of mine on her blog sparked me to write my own post.

We are choosing not to "do" Santa in our home. We "did" Santa for the first two years of Sophie's life, not that she will really remember that, but once Neal and I started to root ourselves deeper in our faith we began to realize that maybe this was not the route we wanted to take with her and any other children we may have. Since then we haven't really had to field many questions about Santa Claus, until recently. Sophie is a very smart girl, constantly asking questions and almost always remembering the answers. She pays attention, very close attention in Sunday school and preschool where she learns Bible verses, sings songs about God and attends chapel with her class. All in all the girl is surrounded by the word of God and can tell you about several people and their stories in the Bible. This is definitely not something I was able to do as a child. Sometimes I am convinced that she might know more about the Bible than me! Anyhow, the question came up in October sometime (she had been rehearsing Christmas songs in school since September for her Christmas program so the topic was fresh in her mind) "Mommy, what does Santa have to do with baby Jesus?" I was silent for a minute thinking carefully about my response, but I could tell that the wheels were already turning in her head about the truth and reality of the fat man in the red suit who magically brings presents. I proceeded with my answer, "Well nothing really, he is more like a symbol reminding us to show kindness and love to one another just like Jesus shows all of us". That answer was enough for her at the time and she remembered it when we had our more recent conversation where I went into more detail about how Santa Claus is a character based on the real Saint Nicholas, who she knows about from the VeggieTales movie, but I refreshed her memory with the story anyway. We talked more about Jesus for a while, giving to others in need and she proceeded to tell me how Jesus is real and not a character, but Santa is a character like Dora or Mickey Mouse. I ended the conversation by telling her that Santa Claus gives us gifts and it reminds us of the gift that Jesus gave us which was.......and she finished my sentence by smiling and saying, "HIM!!!!" Siiiiiigh my mommy heart jumped for joy, she gets it and she is joyful about it!

Now, we are most certainly not banning Santa. I would be quite the hypocrite if I did, telling my children that he is a make believe character who needs to be banished and forgotten and then hauling my whole family off to Disney World (which we do, often), a theme park built around a fictional little mouse! We simply want our children to focus on the real reason of the Christmas season, the birth of Jesus Christ. Focus on the true joy that comes from giving and not simply get excited about the prospect of receiving presents. To give not only material gifts to those we love and those in need, but gifts of the heart.

Christmas Stockings

It's a funny thing to do a blog post on, but I love our family's Christmas stockings. They are each special in their own way. They are not your average run of the mill store bought stockings, ours are all hand knit, with love by family. Neal's stocking was made by his great grandmother on his mother's side and mine and the kids' were all made by my grandmother, Sophie.

The story of how the stockings came to be.....

Neal and I have had our stockings for as long as we can remember. When I was pregnant with Sophie in 2006, I knew that I did not want her to have a store bought stocking, but rather the made-with-love kind her Daddy and I had. At the time my grandmother was feverishly knitting baby blankets for the 3 babies that were about to enter our family (myself and my two cousins were each welcoming little ones that year!) so I thought why not ask if she could whip up a stocking too?! Much to my disappointment my grandmother no longer had the pattern for the stocking that she made for all her children, her children's spouses, and her grandchildren. She did, however tell me that she still had my grandfather's stocking up in the attic that she could simply stitch Sophie's name on. I was overjoyed not only to have a knit stocking for my new baby girl, but what made it all the more special was that it was my grandfather's who passed away when I was just 2 years old.

When Jonah came along in 2009 I knew I was going to need another stocking to keep the tradition going. Knowing that my grandmother could no longer knit one due to the lack of a pattern, my mom offered up her stocking to her new grandson. My mom lovingly stitched Jonah's name onto her stocking making it his.

Fast forward 2 years almost to the day and sweet Maisie Dorothea enters our family. We most certainly could not have mismatched stockings at this point, so my mother already had a plan in place, my father's stocking would become Maisie's.

So while the children's stockings were not made specifically for them, the theme of how they acquired them remains the same........love.

Christmas Program

Every Monday at school Sophie has music class. Every Monday since September, Sophie and her classmates have been learning and singing Christmas songs all in preparation for the big day on Tuesday, December 14th at 9am when they would all very proudly share with friends and family the fruits of their labor. And man did all that practicing pay off because they all did a fabulous job! I was so proud of my little girl up there singing and doing the hand motions like everyone was there to see just her! It is so silly to say that watching my first baby up there with her class singing away, my eyes welled up with pride. I am not sure if it was all pride or a little bit of sadness mixed in my hormonal pot thinking about how she is growing up and that this time next year she will be in kindergarten, kindergarten people! My mom and dad were able to come and share in Sophie's joy and I took video while Maisie was strapped to the front of me in the Moby, and wow let me tell you how interesting that was. It was quite a feat having a 12ish pound baby strapped to the front of me who's body temp combined with mine could have melted the polar ice caps and trying to hold a very heavy camera steady. Well, I was not very successful in the steady part, but Neal got the idea and Sophie was happy I had the footage to share with him! We were all so proud of Sophie, especially Jonah, who upon seeing her up in front of everyone, proceeded to wave and shout to her, "Hi Sis-Sis, Hi" over and over again! So sweet! He had the whole audience chuckling.

Cedar Lake Tree Farm 2011

It is our family tradition that every year we head out to good ole' Iron Station, NC to Cedar Lake Tree Farm to pick out our freshly cut tree. My parents and I have been going to this tree farm since we moved to NC, and then once Neal and I married we continued to do the same. It is a family run farm that is truly an awesome experience. Cedar Lake has cows, bulls, turkeys, chickens, donkeys, Santa Claus, and of course Christmas trees. Outside of all the livestock fun probably the most alluring thing is a gigantic mountain of hay bales for the kids to climb all over and perform death defying jumps from...you know the kind that give the on looking mommies a death defying heart attack!

What trip to get a Christmas tree is complete without candy canes? After eating 2 & dropping 1 he proceeded to tell me how "kicky" (sticky) he was!

His "cheese" face.

What happens when...........

Mommy leaves you in Daddy's care for 5 minutes

Daddy hears the crinkling of plastic and wonders what it could be

Mommy comes back down stairs and asks where the boy is

Mommy and Daddy enter the play room to find......

the boy has made off with a candy cane from the Christmas tree

and is thoroughly enjoying it

at least until Mommy takes it away

moving on to watching chickens instead

How We Decorate......

Sophie wanted to help in every capacity!

Naturally, Jonah is fascinated with the tree and lights. He keeps trying to blow the lights out and stick my cooking utensils on the tree like ornaments.

Jonah enjoyed rolling around and breaking ornaments.
(Luckily they were ornaments we don't use)

She was quite into decorating this year

She was SO excited to put the star on the tree.

it's a wonderful life.........

A couple of weekends ago we set out for a family photo shoot to get some pictures for our Christmas card and to document our ever changing children! I have to say that I was pretty pleased, actually overjoyed with the way they turned out. This is the way we will be doing photos from now on, just us and Neal's trusty tripod and keen eye for style and design. Here are a few of my favorites from the day........there are many more favorites of mine, but I figured posting all of them would get a bit redundant! Enjoy my beautiful family and the talent of my husband.