Traditions...new and old

Happy December! We are entering my favorite time of year. The lights, the singing, the wonder in children's eyes, the lazy evenings cuddled up by a fireplace. I just love it all. The last few years God has been working on how we celebrate Christmas. He has used relationships, new and old, to help me work through these things that I've been struggling with. I had begun to dread the Christmas season and the constant attitude of want, want, want and I hated that because I love Christmas and was sad to see my excitement dwindle. So the last few years we've done things a little differently. I started working on traditions more than "things" and this year I want to add a few more that I've heard about from different sources. I think we are going to change how we do presents for our children. Between both sets of grandparents, great-grandparents and aunts and uncles galore, my children get beyond spoiled. I have seen this idea where they can ask for three to four things. We are already at the "if Jesus got only three things, you don't need more than three things." But this year we're going to make it more specific. I'm sure it will need tweaking to fit our family better, but you can't do that until you start. I will let you know what we decide. On top of that, we not only celebrate traditional Christmas, but we started a Jesse advent tree last year and even celebrated Hanukkah. I just love the meaning behind all these things and figured that the more time we spent focused on Jesus Christ and others, the less time we would spend on the want, want, want.

Since our world has been completely rocked and it's becoming very obvious that this Christmas season is going to look very different for us, I wanted to start brand new traditions. One of those is an idea I found on a blog I've been following for a few years now. She is a fellow Ethiopian adoptive mom and is very crafty and extremely generous. She started an acts of kindness advent last year. Every day for 25 days, she does something special for someone who usually doesn't get their proper thanks.
 Check out her blog here:  http://pitterpatterart.com/kindness-advent/
So starting today, we are going to try the 25 days of kindness. I'm not sure yet what our first day is but I'm going to sit down with the kids and let them decide.

The next new thing we're going to start today is the little mischievous elf. Not because I want my kids to think he's literally watching them and reporting back to Santa (because that's just creepy to me and they need to want to act right out of following Christ, not Santa) but because I've seen some really cute ideas on the trouble he can get into. Also, since all of our Christmas toys, books and decorations are at home in boxes in the attic, I thought this would be perfect for the kids to "play" with. I want them to help name him and prop him. I want him to be a fun new addition to our family that helps us celebrate the season.

So this is a year of new. I had really convinced myself that this would be our last year in this home since we are probably looking at moving this summer, but I might not even get that. God knows where my heart really is and in a strange way, this fire situation is helping focus even more on what's important and making it easier to let go of things that I've been holding onto so tightly. What traditions does your family do? I would love some more ideas!