Homemade Christmas-From Xanthe

Many of you know we started a new tradition last year.  For a very long time I've felt the loss of the "spirit of Christmas" and mulled many years on how to bring it back.  I hated the feeling of too many obligations (attending parties and giving random presents).  I wanted my family to start focusing on what it feels like to have the "Spirit of Christmas."  One of the ways was by having a homemade Christmas.  Each person puts a lot of thought into making a homemade gift for each member of the family.  It doesnt' have to be elaborate, but just personal and homemade for that person.

Last year was such a success.  Not only did each person spend most of the Christmas season thinking of what to make for their loved ones (instead of what they were going to "get"), they had more experience really FEELING how good it feels to give to another person.  And even though I was the one planning it, I insisted someone help Spencer make a gift for me.  Not that I cared about getting gifts, I just wanted Spencer to have more opportunities to feel how good it feels to give, more than receive.  

My favorite memory of last year was watching Spencer's excitement as he found his gifts he had made and watched each person open it.  He was shaking with anticipation and a huge smile was plastered all over his darling face.  It was exactly what I had wanted and anticipated he would feel.  Because this year we got to watch the videos from last year for him to relive his excitement and remember how good it felt to give more than receive.

My friend, Annie, caught on to the homemade Christmas idea and not only adopted it with her own family (which was a huge success), but she wrote an article for the local newspaper with about 20,000 readers.  Here's the link if you'd like to read up on it.  http://www.kaiserslauternamerican.com/the-perfect-gift/

So without further adieu, here is our 2013 Homemade Christmas.  

These are the gifts made and given by Xanthe...  She did such a great job and I am finding out how creative Xoe and Xanthe are!  Great job Xanthe!

For Dad

A personalized notebook with his initial on it.

For Mom

Coupons for lots of homemade gifts and services.  Yay!

Cookies in a Jar.

 For Xoe

Fingerless gloves.  The girls' favorite kinds.  Annie helped Xanthe with this.

For Spencer

Xanthe hand painted this picture of a steam engine. It's a Paint by Number but a very intricate one. It took her almost two weeks of working on it every night.  Such a great job, isn't it?

For the rest of the family, I have created separate posts. They are immediately following this post.