Merry Christmastime!

Ok, so it's not Christmas yet, but I'm so excited about the whole season this year. We are carrying on some fun family traditions that I would like to write down for posterities sake. We start off the season with the 12 days of Christmas. We have done it the last few years and the kids LOVE it more and more every year. They are prime for Christmas this year. Old enough to be really excited, and also old enough to understand that Christmas is a time of giving and thinking of Christ. Well they are starting to understand that part anyway..... Then Christmas Eve we will be off to my parents house for our Mexican fiesta!!! Hooray! I think my mom pulled this one out of the air but I think it is more fun than Christmas for me! We also decorate our mason jar instead of stockings. My dad is one of 10 kids, and I think his mom just got tired of trying to figure out stockings every year so she used mason jars instead. I loved that we were different from every other family, so we usually have jars at grandma's house, and stockings at ours, but this year, I'm going to embrace the jar idea. I hope Gabe will let me. Then Christmas morning growing up, we ALWAYS had mom's homemade cinnamon rolls, and I loved that!!! But.... Gabe has meshed his ginormous breakfast tradition into ours, and now Christmas breakfast is a feast to behold!!! Then the normal open presents, play with presents, eat a lot, and then after Christmas dinner an angel food cake as a birthday cake for baby Jesus. I love this time of year. It makes me so cheerful. I hope to be able to carry the joy throughout the coming year.