Traditon # 2: The Christmas Light Adventure

Now I know that going to look at Christmas lights is something that almost every family does during the Christmas season. I don't claim that this is unique to our family! We do have a certain way that we do things each year, though, that makes this tradition special to our family.

First--Pajamas! (Don't worry--Matt and I wear our regular clothes!) Second, hot chocolate for Matt and the kids and coffee for me. Then it's time to load up the van.

Here's Nathan, hot chocolate in hand, all ready to go!



Lydia seems just a little sheepish about getting into the van in her pajamas, but she graciously consents to having her picture made.

Lily has no clue why she's getting in her carseat when she should be getting into her bed, but if we're happy, she's happy!

OUR FIRST STOP ON THE CHRISTMAS LIGHT ADVENTURE!

Yes, my friends, that is what you think it is. The "hot now" sign at Krispy Kreme. And not just any Krispy Kreme. This is the very spot where Elvis got his doughnuts. Nothing goes better with hot chocolate than a nice, warm doughnut!

This blurry picture is of the lights at Graceland. It's not the best part of town, so we didn't slow down long enough to get a good picture. Besides, neither of us has a huge affinity for Elvis Presley. They do put up a lot of lights and a huge Nativity every year (go figure), and it's just up the road from Krispy Kreme, so we drive by every year just to say we've done it.

Now that we've gotten our dougnuts and seen Graceland, it's time to check out the Christmas decorations. Several years ago, I told Lydia and Nathan that when they saw Christmas lights, they should call out "Merry Christmas!" This was when Nathan was very small, and the best he could do was "Bevvy Kwistmast!" He's big enought to say it right this year, but I have to admit that I miss that little voice piping up "Bevvy Kwistmast" from the back seat. In fact, whenever we see Christmas decarations now, they both say, "Look, they have their Merry Christmas up," or "They have a lot of Merry Christmas at their house!"

Now that I've written all this down, it doesn't seem like a very big deal. But there's a lot of excitement at our house on the day we know we're going to get dougnuts and look at Christmas lights. I hope that one day, the kids will come home from college for Christmas and ask when we're going to take our Christmas light adventure. But if they still want to do it in their pajamas, I'll be a little worried.

Brady Family Christmas Tradition #1

The holidays are over and we are settling back into a normal routine! I had intended to write regular posts about our holiday "doings," but we got so busy "doing" that I never had time to post! So, here are our holidays in retrospect. (I plan on leaving the Christmas background on the blog until I'm done reliving our Christmas activities. It might be up for quite a while!)

Matt and I feel that it is very important to establish special traditions for our family. There's something about tradition that helps hold a family together. Because we travel so much during the Christmas season and are almost never home on Christmas day, our Christmas traditions invlove things other than the usual Christmas morning routine.

Tradition # 1 involves the decorating of the tree. Here's how we do it!


Step #1: Bake Cookies.
This should be done the morning before the designated tree decorating night. Any type of cookie will do, as long as you bake it yourself. We tried store-bought cookies one year, and even though they were really fancy little cookies from World Market, it just wasn't the same.

Lydia was a big help with all the baking.

Nathan wasn't a lot of help, unless eating the dough counts as helping!



It was all fun for Lily, even though she didn't get to eat any of the cookies.

Step # 2: Put up the tree.

Thanks to my parents, we have an absolutely massive Christmas tree. It must weigh a hundred pounds. Getting it out of the attic and setting it up is Matt's responsibility, but the kids get to help fluff up the branches.

Step # 3: Put on the lights.
When I was a child, this step took a LONG time. We had to stretch out all the lights, plug them int, then spend several hours pulling bulbs out and replacing them in order to get the whole strand lit and blinking at the same time. It was fun. Really. I would love to have some of those old lights, just for the memories. But, no--our fancy new tree also happens to be pre-lit, so we actually get to skip step 3. It's been done for us.

Step #4: Hang the ornaments.
When Matt and I got our first tree after getting married, I decided to decorate the entire tree in red and gold. A theme tree, if you will. We bought red and gold ornaments and made a fancy red and gold bow for the top of the tree. Then our good friend Regis decided that since we had just gotten married, we probably didn't have any ornaments. Since he owned a florist's shop, he had plenty of ornaments, so he gave us several. They didn't match my red and gold decorations, but I hung them on the tree anyway. Then our friend Ann decided that since we had just gotten married, we probably didn't have any ornaments. She gave us a bag full of them, and once again, they did not match my decorations. I hung them on the tree anyway, then stood back and looked at our tree. "I guess it's not a 'theme' tree after all," Matt said.
"Of course it is!" I replied. "The theme is love. All of these ornaments were given to us by people who love us, and we'll remember that every time we decorate our tree!"

Since our first Christmas, we've accumulated a lot more ornaments. Friends, family, church members, Sunday School parties, and endless games of "Dirty Santa" have resulted in almost more ornaments that we can fit on the tree. In addition, Lydia and Nathan are old enough now to make ornaments, all of which go somewhere on the tree. As we take each one out and hang it up, we talk about where it came from. Each year our list of "do you remembers" gets longer, and each memory grows more precious.

Lydia works hard at getting each ornament hung just right.

Step #4: Hang the kid's ornaments.
When Lydia was born, Matt and I decided that for every Christmas of her life, we would get her an ornament. When she gets married, we will give her the ornaments as a wedding gift. (Hopefully she won't want a theme tree.) As she got older, we let her choose her own ornaments. Some of the choices have been pretty interesting! We continued this tradition with Nathan, and will do the same with Lily. The last step of our actual decorating process is the kids unwrapping and hanging up each of their ornaments. This year, Lydia and Nathan both chose a baseball player jumping jack from our visit to the Louisville Slugger museum.

Lily hangs her first ornament.

Step #5 Drink hot chocolate and eat the cookies.
Of course, the hot chocolate has to be served in fancy cups. I saw this in a magazine when Lydia was not quite three, and made them to drink our hot chocolate out of that year when we put up the tree. The next year, she remembered and asked for the "candy glasses" again. These are made by dipping the rim of the mug in melted white chocolate, then in crushed peppermints. They make a huge mess when you're trying to drink out of them, but Lydia and Nathan like them, so they have become a part of our tradition!

I'm not sure what this sad face was about!