Traditions! Traditions! Old and New Traditions!

All of us have many precious traditions that we look forward to sharing with our families each year at Christmas time. We have several. Many that are service oriented like our 12 days Nativity. Some that are just fun and have originated over the years almost by accident, like the rabbit hunt that Karl and the kids go on while I wrap presents or do other things that get us closer to being ready for that special day. Our most popular and favorite tradition so far is our Christmas Story tradition. Each year we wrap up a Christmas book and then on Christmas Eve we open the gift and add it to our previous years Christmas books. Then we stay up reading our books until we can't keep our eyes open any longer.

This year has been BY FAR and away our most memorable Christmas yet. We added two new traditions to our holiday season. Both of them added to contribute to our Christ Centered Christmas. One was simply a Jesus Tree. This tree is covered in white lights and ornaments that remind us of Jesus. The next new tradition will require a little explanation.
To introduce the other new tradition to our children, we bent our Christmas Story tradition just a little. We let the kids open the Christmas book for this year about 3 weeks early. The book we gave them this year is called, The Last Straw. I read this book at the end of the holiday season last year. I felt impressed to purchase it right then and put it away just for this time. I didn't fully know what I was going to do with this book but I just knew we needed to have it in our family. After our decision to not have Santa visit this year I continued to think about how to make our Christmas just as magical and fun as all the other years. As I was thinking about this I remembered this book. I pulled the book out and read it again. I love the idea of the serving combined with the giving of Jesus a gift. I started to pray about how I could add this to my families Christmas.
After letting the kids open the book and after reading it we presented our family with a Jesus Gift. It is an empty box with a slit in the side. We then told them that it was empty right now but we hoped to have it filled by Christmas morning, when it would be the first gift we would open because it was Jesus's birthday. "Well what are we going to fill it with?" My children asked. Karl and I explained that we were going to fill it up with secret services that Jesus would love! We talked about who Jesus would love to see them serve (anyone) and told them that each time they did a 'Secret Service' they could go to the Jesus Tree were the box would be hanging, fill out a slip of paper that explained what they had done, fold up the paper and put it through the slit! Their eyes lit up! And so began our most memorable Christmas ever and it's not even over yet! It has been a joyful experience.
The other day Jax and I went walking into his room, he stops, gets wide eyed, and says, "Wow mom! Was my room this clean when you came in here just a minute ago? Some one did a secret service!" He was so pleased and it brought joy to my life and his and whomever did the service. Since that day I've heard, "Hey someone did a secret service!" Exclaimed joyously many, many times. It has been a joy for me as I myself have hurried to do a secret service without getting caught. Can you imagine my joy when my youngest daughter came in and said to me that she would like to do a secret service by taking some bread to her singing teacher who had just gotten home that day from the hospital, where she had had a baby, and would I help her make it? We have all had little notes of love found all around the house. And a few of us still have some secret service surprises up our sleeves before the holiday season is over. I think we are going to reach our goal of having our box filled before Christmas morning and I can't wait to open it up and see who did what kinds of service!

Before ending this post I just wanted to share some photos and a couple videos of our pre-holiday moments!

Karl and the daughter of our very good friends share the same birthday, Dec. 12th. So we had a little party for the two of them. It was a lot of fun.

I have such cute children! We found Luke was fine with sitting on Santa's lap as long as there was someone in between him and that big bearded guy!
This is our Jesus Tree it really is quite pretty. The Jesus Gift is hanging on the other side. Karl forgot to take a picture of it. I will try to get one and post it later.

Jax had a great time putting lights on our one lonely tree in front of our house.

This is our regular Christmas tree with our cat laying under it. She is so funny every year she loves to hang out under the Christmas Tree.

Just another family tradition of decorating the tree.

Even Luke helps!

We had the opportunity to return the visit of our friends and visit them in Eagle Mountain. It snowed a lot that day and Kenzi, Missy, and Jacelin had a great time playing in it!

The girls are in a singing group and here they are hanging out with some of their good friends.

This is a picture of their whole group and the videos I'm going to post are of each of them singing one of their solos.

We hope you all have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We love you!

Our Christ Centered Christmas

Today I received an answer to a silent prayer I have been offering for some time now.
Let me explain. Karl and I have had the feeling for several years now that we should take "Santa" out of Christmas. He has become so commercialized and very few people really stop to think about what he represents. This is sad but obvious. The commercialization of Santa has become a tool that Satan uses to create greed in the hearts of men. It is always amazing too me how Satan takes so many good things and uses them to actually become exactly opposite of what they represent. It's so sad.
This year we decided to go with our feelings and let our children know that we were going to have a Christ Centered Christmas, no Santa. At first they were a little surprised. They were worried that they wouldn't get "lot's of fun stuff" for Christmas. This confirmed my thoughts on Santa creating greed, because my children have never been what I would call greedy. They have never been the type to write a long list of things they want, and their response to Santa when he asked what they wanted for Christmas was always: "I don't care, I know I'll like whatever you bring me."
They are still a bit unsure about Christmas without Santa and I have been also, but I just kept getting this overwhelming feeling that this is what we needed to do. Then today I was reading in my May 2008 Conference Report Ensign and read Sister Lant's talk "Righteous Traditions". I had an overwhelming feeling of peace as I read these words: "The most important traditions are connected with the way we live our lives and will last beyond us as our children's lives are influenced and shaped. What kinds of traditions do we have? Are they what we want them to be? Are they based on actions of righteousness and faith? Are they mostly material in nature, or are they eternal? Are we consciously creating righteous traditions, or is life just happening to us? Are our traditions being created in response to the loud voices of the world, or are they influenced by the still, small voice of the Spirit? Are the traditions that we are creating in our families going to make it easier for our children to follow the living prophets, or will they make it difficult for them?"
As I continued to read my Heavenly Father again spoke peace to my heart through Sister Lant as she said: "Our efforts must be toward hearing the interpretations of the Spirit rather than the understandings of the world."

As she asked this questions towards the end of her beautiful talk: "Will their hearts and lives be full of traditions that make it easy for them to accept and follow the Lord and the latter-day prophets?" my heart was gladdened to know that the Lord approved of what we were doing with our family because we could, in regard to this tradition, shout "YES!"

I'm so thankful for the tender mercy of my Father in Heaven. He, despite His endless work, granted me a knowledge of His acceptance of our actions, and gave me peace in knowing that He approves of us striving to put our Lord and Savior at the head of our Christmas season.