Carver Family Christmas: GONNA TRICK THE KIDS....

Thursday, September 18, 2008

GONNA TRICK THE KIDS....

SPOILER ALERT: NO KIDS ALLOWED ON THIS POST!

As I was thinking about Easter and finding ways to make it bigger I thought, why not just create some sort of "Easter Advent" and read passages that summarize the rest of the Bible to the kids. Then I thought about why Christmas is so much larger and I thought about all the legends, symbols and traditions around the world. Then these incredibly spiritual thoughts made me have a totally fun stroke of genious. I was thinking,"I wonder if I can get someone to jump on the roof and stomp around a bit and rattle some bells to try to trick my kids that Santa is up there?" The next thought that occurred to me is true inspiration from a God who is the originator of the "sense of humor."

Apple TV has a totally cool function to it. It can sync up all the speakers it's set up to play through so they play one signal from the main computer. So here is what I'm going to do. I'll create a "song list" to play during our advent scripture reading time on Christmas Eve in the living room. Periodically on the track I'll add some bells and "ho-ho-ho's" which are NOT in stereo (I'll make this mix on my Mac with Garage Band but if you have a PC ~ sorry 'bout your luck ~ and you can get something like Sony Music Mixing Software to do this too) so the kids think Santa is flying overhead. Well Jackie will think, Steve Jr "knows" but this will for sure confuse him. Later on when I'm putting them to bed I'll have another track that plays through the entire house syncing our office, bedroom and living room sound systems together and is only the sound of hoofs, bells and more "ho-ho-ho's" so they think maybe Santa landed on our roof or our neighbor's roof. LOL! Jackie can't help but fall asleep the instant her head hits the pillow so I'll get Steve Sr to play this while I'm singing her good-night. Yes, I still sing to my kids. Jackie's song is "Jesus Loves Me" and Steve Jr's is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". He'll lay there for an hour if I've forgotten to go in and sing! And I razzed my husband so bad about buying Apple TV for the bedroom since he never watches TV in the bedroom. Go Apple! LOL

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Our Traditions Old And New

* Watch "The Christmas Story" after family Thanksgiving dinner (Tues before Thanksgiving, no extended family)
* Watch "The Polar Express" on trim-the-tree night
* Read scriptures and light advent candles nightly in December
* Get pictures taken with Santa
* Drive to Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park for their lights display
* Go downtown Cincinnati for "Carver Family Christmas Downtown Day"
* Take Jackie to see "The Nutcracker" ballet
* Watch "The Nativity" Christmas Eve
* Attend Christmas Eve service at church
* Add the Christmas Pickle ornament to the tree Christmas Eve, come up with a reward for the finder Christmas morning
* Daddy reads Luke 2 and we have a prayer before the kids open gifts
* Watch Disney's Christmas parade Christmas morning
* Watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" Christmas night

What exactly do we do for our advent tradition?

There are many different ways to celebrate advent with candle lighting ceremonies and I have created my own which is an adaptation of a Catholic tradition. I use purple candles the first three weeks to symbolize the royalty of Christ, a pink candle the fourth week to symbolize joy at the coming of the Savior's birth and a fifth candle, a white Christ Candle to remind us that Jesus is the light of the world. The fifth candle gets lit on Christmas Eve. This year (2008) I intend on hunting down some exquisitely beautiful candle holders and decorating my piano (a focus in my living room corner) with only these candles, greenery and a manger scene. I'm going to buy 4 sets of these candle holders and give them to the kids as wedding gifts when they get married. I use new candles each year and the candles are lit each night only during our scripture reading time and on Christmas Eve stay lit during "The Nativity" movie. I'm going to create my own list of passages and thoughts to go with them and I'll add them to this blog when that is complete.

What is "Carver Family Christmas Downtown Day"?

Something entirely made up by me! Traditions are very important to close-knit families and anything you give a title to becomes a tradition the kids can look forward to. I love the city, and incidentally so does Steve Jr, and the businesses and museums downtown bring Christmas to life through train displays, carriage rides (the picture on the blog was from '07), special foods, gingerbread houses and wonderful decorations. Since we do go downtown every year and do it all I decided to give our tradition a name, and last year I even typed up booklets with all the activities available to do downtown!! The kids love this. CLICK HERE to see a current listing of events happening in and around the city - year round!

We Are A Charlie Brown Holiday Family

Traditions don't need to be elaborate to be meaningful and one thing we do is watch a Charlie Brown special on most major holidays of the year. We have A Charlie Brown Christmas, It's The Easter Beagle Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and Be My Valentine Charlie Brown. All the titles have 2 shows each and we do watch both. And this is always on the evening of the actual holiday day. So no matter whose house we go to wherever we go, we always end the day at home doing something special, just the five of us. Maybe this tradition will change when the kids outgrow these DVDs but you can bet I'll be finding something good to replace the tradition with!