So this is the first Christmas since my husband and I split, where the kids are divided between us. Not as in half a kid here and half a kid there (though I call heads!) but they’ll be with me for Xmas eve and half of Xmas day and then with their dad. We try to be fair in all things and actually I think we do a pretty fine job of it but it’s HARD!
Xmas to me is all about family and especially kids. Not all the consumerist bullshit but as my 5 year old says (though bear in mind she is fishing for a flubber machine, some playmobil, and a giant anatomically correct costume of a sort which I will not identify here just know that it is *points* of an organ down there. I’m pretty sure she’s going to grow up to be a scientist) “Christmas is about kindness and love.”
The way my family celebrated Christmas: a long cold bundled up walk, stockings on the bed, a yummy large breakfast, these are the things I remember long after the toys were broken or outgrown. Although I fondly remember the ‘first’ watch inside a succession of boxes, each wrapped and each smaller than the first gigantic one.
So me and my kids will keep the opening stockings on my bed tradition, and yes, I will haul them out for a brisk walk before breakfast, and then stuff them full of pancakes/waffles/or French toast but we’re going to have a couple of new traditions in my house.
One is a Xmas craft. Like this one:
These are over-sized papier mache ornaments. A woman was selling some beautiful and far less lumpy ones at the Farmer’s Market last week for *gasp* 30 dollars each. I’m a single mom on a budget so I didn’t buy one though I dearly dearly wanted to. Instead I decided to make them using balloons and paper cups for the tops of the ornaments. Then the kids and I painted them and glitterized them and I took them outside and hung them on the washing line while I spritzed them with some really toxic clear varnish stuff. Cool, right?
And the other was inspired by some other creative types who have taken it upon themselves to select random conifers along the old rail trails that cut through town and decorate them every year.
Me and the kids went for a walk this morning after baking and decorating sugar cookies, and we chose and ornamented this one:
Hoping that your holiday is as wonderful as mine.
Love,
Jo