Merry Christmas!

Rochelle has a Holiday Walk every December in downtown Rochelle. This year is the first time we learned about it ahead of time and were able to attend it. I would have liked to go to it sooner but I had to pass along the materials from my calling to the person who is now taking it over. That aside my mom and I hit the downtown area and visited a few shops and has some fun. The museum had a little fire in a brazier outside and inside they had Santa. We could take pictures with our own cameras of our children with Santa asking for toys or whatever. So this was Davy's first time meeting Santa, last year I didn't even try. And going by Davy's reaction this year I am kind of glad that I didn't. Davy was interested in the bells that Santa gave him to play with, but was not at all interested in having anything else to do with Santa, which I didn't really push. I figure Davy doesn't need to have bad experiences with Santa. It all resulted in us not getting any pictures, which is fine.

We also visited a few shops which were giving out free cookies and we also hit up the local thrift store which actually takes donations and uses the money that they make to fund a battered women's shelter. They were having a 25% off sale of everything in the store and Davy was able to get a few neat toys (most of them are going into the Church bag) two of which are toys that let him play with letters and numbers. He is in love with those. I also found a bag full of flashcards, but they are different than most flash cards. 1. They are thick cardboard cards that have a picture on one side and the word of what the picture is on the other. 2. They are also in the shape of whatever the picture is. 3. There are some letter cards as well that are in the shape of the letters. Kevin and I made flashcards for Davy but they were misplaced somewhere in our house and we haven't been able to find them yet. Kevin has been wanting to make some more flashcards for him but we haven't (or rather I haven't) gotten around to it yet. Kind of have been busy with getting ready for Christmas and having a baby.

Speaking about the baby, I am beginning to get ready for having the baby. I have written up a detailed babysitting guide for my parents that lists Davy's daily routines and have also put together a concise outline of his routines as well, I included important phone numbers and the feeding instructions for the dogs. I also put together a birth plan for when I deliver. Now I just need to print them all out, and pack bags for myself and for Davy and the dogs. I should probably pack a bag for Kevin as well just because. That way when the time comes we can just grab and go. I still can't believe that we are so close to her coming. By next Friday her lungs will be fully developed and she will be technically full term (37 weeks).

I am pretty much all done with Christmas presents, I just need to finish two of them, ship one of those two and then I will be done. I may drag Kevin up to Rockford tomorrow to get things for the last two presents.

Speaking of Christmas I have been thinking about it a good bit lately. So far this year I have discussed the birth story of Christ twice with my Seminary students. And this year I would like to go through it with Davy as well, I don't think he will really understand but I would like to go over it with him. I find that the older I get the less and less I like the gimmicky Christmas songs, you know, the ones about Frosty and Santa and Rudolph. Instead I love the beautiful songs about the Savior. This year I just seem so much more focused on the Savior at this Christmas time. With Christmas approaching Kevin and I have had more conversations about how we want to do the whole Santa thing.

When I was a child my parents told me at a pretty young age, I can't remember what age that was, that Santa was not real. So I knew, but as a family we still basically played along with the Santa premise. I don't really know how it was done in Kevin's family but I do know that one of his favorite personal traditions was helping his mom fill the Christmas stockings on Christmas Eve. They both suffer from insomnia so it was a great bonding time for him and his mom. Kevin and I have basically decided that we will tell our children that Santa is not really real but he is a fun tradition that we as a family will be doing. (Kind of similar to how my parents did it) I am guessing that we will probably also do it similar to how my parents did it where we will encourage them to "believe" in the Santa tradition even as we reaffirm that Santa is not actually real. I think we will probably go over the Santa story as a nice reminder of how we can serve others while focusing most of the celebration on the nativity story of Christ.

Recently I saw a video of a young child, probably toddler age maybe 3 or 4 who was upset by the fact that the "Christmas Elf" did not bring him the toy he really wanted, the child threw a long and very intense fit over it. I showed the video to Kevin and he said, "If any of our children throw a fit like that over a toy they get for Christmas then they will not be getting whatever it was they really wanted." Basically not wanting to reward the child for the fit they threw. Another way of viewing it is, we want to instill in our children that the gifts they get on Christmas do not come from some omniscient being that knows exactly what they want, the gifts come from real people who are trying their best to get something they think the child might like. The gifts may not be exactly what they wanted, but they should be grateful anyway. It reminds me of Kevin's first Christmas with my family. We were engaged but not married at the time (I think), it was Christmas and we were opening presents from my Grandma and Grandpa who were visiting for Christmas. It was my brother's turn to open his presents from them. He opened them and found Precious Moments Christmas tree ornaments. My brother was 13 years old at the time. Now, I don't know many (if any) 13 year old boys who want Precious Moments anything. But we had instilled into us by our parents the knowledge that we should be grateful for any present we got, especially from our grandparents who were both retired and on a fixed income and were giving us presents from things they could find or afford. So my brother was very thankful and gracious about his presents, so much so that Kevin (who at this point did not know my family very well as this was his second time meeting them) thought that my brother actually had wanted the Precious Moments figurines. It is this that I want to instill in my children, the attitude of gratitude no matter what they are given. I think more people need it, and I hope that my children are able to grow up with it as part of who they are.