How We Spent Christmas Day

I have to say that this Christmas made me a little nervous because it was our first one as our small little family.  We decided this year not to go back for Christmas and spend our money on a cruise last summer.  We've never spent Christmas together.  Even back in the states we traveled to California to spend with our cousins or the girls visited their Dad in Utah.  The girls were pretty nervous and because they're one of the older cousins in the Schultz family, they really hold the Christmas traditions as super important.  They were pretty nervous they wouldn't have a good year, but I assured them that most of the extended family was doing their own thing anyway.  They gave it a chance.   I think it turned out awesome.  Here's how we spent Christmas Day.

Christmas Morning

The favorite tradition!  waiting on the stairs for Christmas presents.  They wait until everyone is ready and then when the parents are ready at the bottom, they run down the stairs to see what Santa had brought.  They're allowed to look into their stocking and open any presents inside.  Then we started passing out the Homemade Presents.

Homemade Presents

To see what our Homemade Present tradition is, click here for the first post.

Present Opening

After we opened our Homemade Christmas presents, we also opened the rest of the presents under the tree. Another tradition the girls love is handing out the presents one at a time.  Then we all open one present at the same time, then go around the room and show everyone what they got.  This year I think was a really great Christmas. They got almost everything on their list and I was, for the first time, not nervous they were going to be disappointed.

I didn't catch very many pictures, but here are a few.  There's a video about 3 pictures down, which is of the big present we're getting them this year. We couldn't get a real one because of other circumstances, so we'll have to look in the next few weeks.  

Christmas Dinner

Xoe and Xanthe love having people over for dinner, so we invited a family for Christmas Dinner.   At the last minute they all got sick.  We weren't sure what to do for Christmas Dinner until at the last minute we received an invitation from the Bushman family.  My friend, Jenni, was visiting with her friend, Sammy, and I hadn't been able to see them yet.  I was so excited to go see them and it was perfect timing. we had a fabulous time.

One of my favorite moments was when Jenni's mother asked us to sing.  We weren't prepared so we just sort of sat down playing through Christmas songs.  We didn't sing anything as a performance, we just sort of sang at the piano.  We had such a great time, a lot of laughs and a ton of Christmas Spirit.  One of my favorite Christmases for sure.

Christmas Movie Night

One of our long-standing family Christmas traditions is to go to the movies on Christmas Day.  We left the Bushman's house to go to the movies on base.  The only movie was Walking with Dinosaurs in 3-D, one that Spencer has been counting down the days to see.  The girls reluctantly joined us but it was a fun family night.

What a great Christmas!!!  I love our little family!

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.  

Homemade Christmas-From Xoe

For a full description of our Homemade Christmas, see the more recent post called "Homemade Christmas-From Xanthe."

These gifts are made by Xoe.  She did such a great job planning her presents. She is such a good gift giver and had almost too many ideas for everyone. We had to narrow it down for her.  

For Dad

Dad does a really good job BBQ'ing but never has anything to put the meat in. I think he loved it.

For Mom

Homemade Bath Salts made with sugar, olive oil and essential oils with homemade labels. 

For Xanthe

Home is where the sparkles are.  These girls love California.  

For Spencer

Monster Shoes for Spencer made from paint cans.

Our Homemade Christmas-From Spencer

For a full description of our Homemade Christmas, see the more recent post called "Homemade Christmas-From Xanthe."

These gifts are made by Spencer.  Xoe was really amazing to help him with a lot of the gifts.  She did it on her own without me even asking.  She is such an amazing girl and a great gift giver.

For Dad

Xoe helped Spencer make this amazing handprint calendar.  It took them a long time but Spencer was really excited to make it for his dad.

For Mom

Daddy and Xoe and Xanthe helped Spencer with this gift for Mom.  They had to melt and hand dip these candles for me.

This was his excitement the whole morning when giving his gifts to everyone.  EXACTLY what I was going for. :) 

This was Spencer's present to his sisters.  Each of them got one of these sets.  We went to the Lego store and he built Lego people that looked like the brother and sisters.  They're kind of funny because they didn't have many options for girl clothes so this is what he came up with. :) And no blonde hair for boys but Spencer's hair is kind of turning brown anyway.  

Homemade Christmas-From Mom

For a full description of our Homemade Christmas, see the more recent post called "Homemade Christmas-From Xanthe."

These homemade presents are given by Mom.

For Dad & Spencer

Brian can never find pajama pants that fit him.  They're always too short. So I decided to make him some pajama pants with a "mini-me" version for Spencer, seeing as though they are best buddies and just like each other. I think they liked them, don't you?

For Xanthe & Xoe

Last year Xanthe and Xoe made Brian and I tie blankets from two fleece blankets bought at our fun little store called Kik down the street.  They mentioned this year that they wanted one too and I don't think they knew I heard.  They turned out really fun and the girls love them.