Dec 8
Another Secret Keeper Girl Outfit Giveaway!
If you weren’t the winner of our great “punk rock” look given away last week, have no fear. A cuddlier, and cuter outfit is here. Make room for our 2009/10 Winter “Must Have” Outfit. This season it seems like everyone is sporting a buffalo plaid tunic—ours is bright pink and black. We paired it with really great, distressed jeans and a cozy, cuddly sweater in grey. (You supply the boots, hat and glasses!)
31 Comments so far
Give us your thoughts
One of my favorite Christmas traditions is the birthday party we have for Jesus every Christmas eve….helps take some of the attention off of the Santa craziness, and is a great opportunity for worshiping together!
My favorite family tradition is going to the NC mountains with the kids and spending the weekend. We go to Blowing Rock for the lighting of the town and on the last day we visit a local tree farm and all of us get to pick out the perfect tree to bring home, (well it may take a couple of lots, to pick the perfect tree). We bring it home and put on our favorite Christmas music, sip hot chocolate and all decorate the tree. It’s a great feeling, all of us together and every year telling the same stories about where this ornament came from, how long have you had this one mommy, and so forth. Those stories never get old. The whole month is a wonderful feeling for all of us.
On Christmas Eve, we all go to my moms. My kids read the story of Jesus from the Bible every year. We all gather around to listen to them tell the story. We don’t forget the real reason for the season. After we leave my mom’s for the night, we then visit our church and go to the 11:00 candle light service. It again affirms the reason we are here. I have so many good memories and traditions of Christmas with the family. It truely is the best time of the year. Merry Christmas..
On a side note, I want to say thank you for coming to Concord, NC. My daughter, Bailey, accepted Christ as her Savior that night. That was a true blessing and I was so glad to be able to be there with her when she decided to make that commitment. Bailey, her brother Colten, and myself all recently got baptized. The Spirit lives in all of us and we want to remember that this season. I hope to see you again soon, it was a great night!!!! Kristie Brown
One of our family traditions is the hunt for the “pickle”. We have a pickle ornament that my husband and I hide in our tree Christmas Eve, after the kids go to bed. On Christmas morning our 6 kids search for the pickle in the tree. The first one to find it, gets to open the first present… the “pickle present”. Since we have so many kids, the “pickle present” is usually something the whole family can share….like a game or special treat.
Each year for Christmas, we get each of our girls an ornament. When we set the tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving, it is fun to decorate the tree with the girls and remember the years as they hang each one of their ornaments on the tree.
My all time favorite Christmas tradition is making cookies together. It is such a mess but we get to be so creative. My favorites are the angels because they are wearing a dress and we can be very fashion savy in designing their outfits
We love to drive around and look at Christmas lights!
One of my favorite things is to go see my family in Chicago. I get to spend time with my cousins and see my relatives. We spend time together and enjoy the holiday traditions
Well, I don’t suppose this will win any awards (or outfits :0) but it is special to us nonetheless. Every Christmas Eve I host a party for our entire family (32 usually attend). We play Bunco until the wee hours of the night all snacking on homemade finger foods and hot apple cider. We allow the little kids to play too, so it’s fun for the whole family. We always sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and enjoy cake and icecream in His honor. It is an evening full of fun and laughter and NONE of the stress that sometimes we are suseptible to during this season. Jesus is the Reason!
My favorite Christmas tradition is going to our church for our Christmas Eve candlelight service. We sing Christmas songs and everyone holds an unlit candle in a circle in the church and one candle lights all of the candles eventually. The children love the tradition and we as parents pray we are not responsible for burning the church down. I love all the beautiful Christmas songs that we only get to sing once a year. Merry Christmas!
One of my favorite family traditions is getting up super early on Black Friday and shopping with my older daughter. We are home by 9 or 10 a.m. and set up the Christmas tree and decorate the house with the other children. It is usually a day off for everyone, so we play Christmas music, relax, and just enjoy being together as a family.
I am a Pastor’s Daughter so my family’s Christmas traditions are steeped in church related activities and celebrations. As I was growing up, I can remember weekly practices for children’s and youth choirs in preparation for participation in the Christmas Eve and Christmas Sunday services. I loved decorating the mantel with my parent’s Nativity set as well. One figure for each week of advent would be added as we made ready to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Good memories even though we were busy with the extra activities.
When our oldest girls were tweens they were tired of spending so much time on meal prep, so we decided to make every Christmas Eve pizza night. We order pizza early, open a few gifts and just hang out and laugh and have a fun night. It’s wonderfully simple!
we take turns getting “the special person plat” at dinner, and we all tell that person what makes them special to us.
My family and I have 2 traditions: baking a birthday cake for Jesus and doing a Jesse Tree for the Advent season. My daughter, who is now 10, started making the cake with me when she was two years old. I have the sweetest photo of her wearing my oven mitts and my grandmother’s half apron!
Though that is a very sweet memory and tradition, the Jesse Tree is what my children look forward to each year. What is a Jesse Tree? Twenty-five ornaments that tell the story of Jesus, from Creation to His birth. The goal of a Jesse Tree is to teach Christ in the Old Testament, all the prophecies concerning Him, that lead up to His birth. Twenty-five women gather to make twenty-five of a particular ornament each, then they exchange so everyone has a complete set. There is a devotional book that accompanies the ornaments, telling what the symbol is for each day and it’s significance. As my children learn more about the Christmas story, they also learn about intercessory prayer, as we pray for each woman as we place her ornament on the tree. I made my ornament and received my set back in 1998, when I was pregnant with that sweet daughter of mine. Now, she desires to make a set for her best friend, Jessica, so they can experience the Jesse Tree next year. It is such a precious tradition that draws the hearts of our children closer to the Savior, as they see Him in places they wouldn’t have thought of before.
To Kristie Brown, in the post before mine: Congratulations to you and your family!! How exciting it is to see our children walk in faith! I will be praying for you as you mother your sweet ones!
We have an advent calendar that my Mom made for our family when I was young. It starts with the creation on December 1 & ends with the Resurrection on December 25. It’s a great way for kids to see the Big Picture while we’re still celebrating Jesus birth. The calendar is a Christmas tree with mini-ornaments to give kids a visual hook for the story. While I am reading the story & my daughter is hanging the ornaments on the tree, I can remember my mom doing the same for my sisters & I. Definitely, my favorite family tradition.
We don’t really have a Christmas Tradition but this got me thinking. I am going to start one this year. Me and my husband have 4 girls and I am going to come up with something great to start this year for the six of us to do together!!!!!
I have 2 favorite traditions. The first is one for our own family. Several years back I was asked to participate in a survey of Christmas questions. The whole family answered things like, “What’s your favorite Christmas song?” and “What is your favorite Christmas memory?” Each year we get those same questions out, sit together with hot chocolate and candy canes. We answer them again, as well as look back at our past answers. It’s so much fun to see which answers are different and which answers never change.
Another tradition we have is to buy an inexpensive nativity set and for several nights before Christmas we secretly deliver a piece of the nativity to a newer family in our neighborhood. My kids set the shepherd or the camel or Joseph on the front doorstep, ring the doorbell and run. Night after night the pieces of the nativity come together. On Christmas Eve the whole family delivers baby Jesus as we carol at their front door and reveal our secret. It’s been a favorite tradition of my children since we began it and I know that it’s made an awesome impact on the other families.
Merry CHRISTmas!
Our family Christmas tradition my husband and I started is we have an open house and serve “breakfast all day”. We stay in our pjs and people show up in their pjs and we just visit and enjoy being together. We have had people show up as late at 9pm and enjoy some pancakes and fresh fruit.
My favorite Christmas tradition since having children is to quietly wake up and put Baby Jesus in our manger. Then, when all 3 kids gather around on Christmas morning, they are excited to see Jesus….and we start off on the right note. I also have begun giving only 3 gifts to my children, which provides another tie in to the Christmas story. My favorite Christmas tradition growing up was gathering around with all my cousins and reading the Christmas story. (I look back now and so appreciate those moments–even if I was anxiously awaiting my gifts then!!)
Traditions? Oh, where do I begin? We love traditions at our house! My absolute favorite is every year we make a cd with either Christmas music or Praise and Worship music and my daughters talking on it. We talk about different things we’ve done that year and our favorite Bible verses, and even the Christmas story. My most favorite CD was when my youngest was 2. I had tried for weeks to get her to say “Happy Birthday Jesus!” so we could put it on the CD that year. She is a very strong willed child and would have nothing of it! I gave up and my oldest, then 5, gave her version of the “Greatest Story Ever Told!” So, the very last thing she said was “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” And, in the background, her ornery little 2 year old sister proudly announces “Happy…Je-sus!” It gets more special with each passing year as they are now 11 and 8 years old. It always warms my heart to hear that little voice and I am reminded at just how quickly they grow and how precious my time with them is!
Our favortie tradition this year has beenr combining ALL of our traditions into one “Red Box”. Every evening after dinner we gather around the “Red Box” in the family room floor. Inside the children(all four) find a special treat (candy to share, an individual note, a group movie to watch that evening, a new family cd” etc…). Then my husband reads the advent scripture for the evening followed by a song, carol or hymn. It is after the devotion, that we do any extra special activities (make clay ornaments for the Jesse Tree) that we add occassionaly throught the season. Next tucked in the “Red Box” is one or two Christmas books in which Daddy reads aloud. Next our four year old son pulls out the next piece to add to the navity and tells the story. Lastly we open all our Christmas cards that we received in the mail that day and pray for those families. The “Red Box” has kept us focused and brings us together each night to reflect on the true meaning…Christ. What we have enjoyed mostly is creating warm memories that last a lifetime!
Our favorite tradition is making a gingerbread house. The house chsnges every year as the girls get older. Its fun to see their creativity and them working together.
Our Favorite Christmas tradition is actually going to our church where we give out Christmas Gifts (toys)to the children in the neighborhood. Parents who bring their kids from other areas are never turned away. It is ALWAYS a joy to see children’s faces light up. I personally think they outshine the Christmas tree. My daughter who is 10 this year, has been looking foward to doing this since Thanksgiving. I have a feeling that she is going to carry this tradition on-well into her generation. The world is looking better already.
One of our favorite family traditions is to read the advent stories, “Jotham’s Journey”, “Bartholomew’s Passage” and “Tabitha’s Travels”. They are all great fun for the entire family. My original idea was to read one of the three stories each year, so the kids wouldn’t get tired of them, but they all had a different idea. They want to read all three (or at least two) of them each year. We try to sit down as a family and read a chapter from each book every day during advent. In a family of 9 getting the whole family together once a day can be a feat in itself, but 2 or 3 times that’s amazing! We love this tradition and we have several more. Traditions are what make the holidays extra-special and memorable. I hope my children will continue to read these great stories of preparation for Christmas to their own children some day.
I grew up overseas as the kid of missionaries. We had no pine trees where we lived so we would pull a palm branch off one of our palm trees, stick it in a bucket and decorate it. Still love the pictures!
How do you choose which tradition to write about?! I think our most favorite, tradition is to read Twas the Night Before Christmas. The book we read from was my husband’s grandmother when she was a child. It is tattered and torn and should probably be preserved in special paper in a special box, but we keep it using. Some treasures just shouldn’t be stored away, but used and loved. So we all cuddle up on the couch, fire burning, cookies and milk by the fireplace, and Daddy Dunc reads. Then our 3 girls skitter off to bed - a sleepover on the playroom floor and dream of sugar plums dancing in their heads For 30 minutes we feel like the Cleavers or the Reeds.
We love to read the real Christmas story to our children (11, 8, 4, 1) from Luke. Every Christmas Eve we sit down around a fire and worship the One who came to save us!
My whole family goes to the Christmas Eve Candle Lite service, before having fun together with food and gifts. We are reminded of what Christmas is really about. It’s always a heart warming experience. We get some beautiful pictures of all the kids with their candles.
We always open one gift on Christmas eve. It is inevitably a pair of new pjs for the night!
Was this outfit ever given away?? I have been watching and I haven’t seen a winner posted.
That is an adorable outfit. I want something just like it!!!