Christmas All Year Round

Well, it's time to start thinking about taking the Christmas tree down.

Isaac is objecting to any such talk.  He loves to watch the lights slowly fade from white to multicolored and back again.  Many nights during the Christmas season, he sneaks from his bed to enjoy this relaxing site during the dark and quiet of the night and falls asleep on the couch.  Part of me says that I should be more careful not to let him form bad habits.  The other part of me leaves the Christmas tree lights on all night to allow him this small pleasure.

December 2008

Isaac is a kiddo that enjoys Christmas all year round.  His teachers at school know that he'll be interested in any book that has a reindeer in it, whether it's December or May.

July 2008

When Isaac was four, he began asking me to watch the Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer video in June.  At the time, I was desperately trying to get him to understand that any language he attempted would be rewarded, so I dug through the Christmas boxes under the stairs.  I emerged dusty and smiling.  I handed him the video proudly and said, "See, you asked Mommy for Rudolph and you got it!"


Little did I know I was creating a monster.  I dug through the boxes often that summer, pulling out all kinds of Christmas stuff.  I made him a Rudolph cake using my Cricut machine, putting sunglasses on Santa, to celebrate his summer birthday.

Isaac turns 5!

Isaac's love for the poem, The Night Before Christmas, inspired a game we played when he needed calming down.  I would recite it and leave out words for him to fill in.  This Christmas he worked extra hard and memorized the whole thing, with me jumping in every so often.  He performed it as a gift for his teacher and paras in his special ed classroom.  Then, he performed it for all the grandparents as well.


I love to watch all my kids enjoy Christmas, and I'm glad we have Isaac to remind us of the sweet things of Christmas all year round.

A Little More Holiday Spirit

Thanksgiving Break always ends with our annual Taylor Tree Lighting Ceremony.  OK--there's not much of a ceremony, but we put up the Christmas tree then turn off all the lights in the house and bask in the Christmas tree's soft glow.  It officially starts the Christmas season for me, and I love it!

This year putting up the Christmas tree brought more holiday spirit with it than usual.

Josie was full of her normal questions about everything, and one question caught me off guard.  She asked why we didn't have a star on top of our tree like everybody else.  The real answer is that I always had an angel on the top of my Christmas tree as a child, so that's what I looked for when purchasing a tree topper for my family.  But, as I glanced up at the angel and began to answer her, something else came out:  "We have an angel to remind us of the angels that came to announce the birth of the Savior to the shepherds on the very first Christmas."

"Oh!" she said, looking delighted.

I smiled and thought how odd it was that even though it's always my job to place the angel, I hadn't thought of the true meaning of this Christmas symbol in years.  I went on to explain that people put stars on the tree to remind them of the new star that appeared in the sky on the night of Christ's birth.

This little parenting moment, like so many others, had me thinking for days.  It's not that I'd forgotten what we are truly celebrating at Christmastime.  It's just that, for the past few years, all the "commercial stuff" of Christmas seemed completely separate from the true meaning.  Josie reminded me to look at the symbols of Christmas hung all around me and remember the meaning behind the symbol along with all the fun memories of Christmases past.  She reminded me that, even to a little child, the wonder of Christmas isn't about what is under the wrapping paper.  She reminded me that this season of giving places Christ and Santa in our thoughts together and, with a little effort, we can enjoy the wonder of both.

Each day, Josie asks me about hiding places for Christmas presents and vibrates with the excitement of unknown surprises.  Each night, Josie prays that Jesus will have a good birthday this year.  Thank you for these sweet reminders, Josie!

A Builder

I have often heard life described as a book in which each new day is a blank page upon which we can write.

Although I love to write, I feel this analogy lacking.

I have always felt more like a builder...

The Builders

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,

 Some with ornaments of rhyme.

 

Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.

 

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.

Sweet Success

 Who says fine motor therapy can't be fun?

Ahhh, the sweet taste of success!