As for me and my house...

I will get on my soapbox now, and hopefully not get pelted with virtual tomatoes. If you can sift through my initial tirade, you might find some useful ideas at the bottom. :)

I don't like Santa Claus. That's why we don't teach Ethan about him or take him to have his photo taken with Santa in the mall. In fact, we drove past a giant inflatable Santa the other day and he called it Noah! I didn't feel the need to correct him at this point in his life, because I'm intentionally trying to NOT expose him to the story of Santa, at least not yet. Three-year-olds tend to believe everything you say, so I want to only present the truth to him at this point.

I really think the Christian community needs to re-think our passion for Santa, and here's my reasons.

1) Santa is all about giving to those who are good. It's an extrinsic motivator for kids to be good - act in the right ways and you'll get presents from the Eye In the Sky this year. That is so opposite who God really is. Sure, he sees you when you're sleeping and he knows when you're awake, but you don't have to worry about not pouting and not crying, because God is merciful and gracious. He doesn't give you coal in your stocking when you're bad, he gives you a Savior.

2) Getting presents from some dude at the North Pole who only makes contact once a year doesn't encourage thankfulness. In fact, what it encourages is consumerism and greed (which Colossians calls idolatry). Kids write these giant lists of things they want and when they get some or all of the items on their list from "Santa", they have no one to thank. On the other hand, when they receive gifts from people they know, they are required to give thanks. I would much rather have my child have the gift of a grateful heart than a few years of the supposed "magic" of Santa Claus.

3) And this whole thing with the Elf on the Shelf who "reports back to Santa" every night? Maybe I'm missing the point but it appears to me like a more extravagant way to deceive our children. And it's all in the name of fun, right? Honestly, my idea of fun with my kids doesn't involve lying to them. Pretending, yes. But only when we all know that we're pretending. So maybe when my kids are old enough to know the difference, we will have more fun with the Santa story. But right now when they don't really understand the difference between real and pretend, it's not worth it. I read something a long time ago that really stuck with me. No matter how much you ham up the Santa story and get them all excited about it every year, eventually they will learn the truth. They WILL learn that their parents deceived them. And at the age when they start questioning the existence of Santa, they are prone to start questioning the other things their parents taught them too. Such things as the "real" meaning of Christmas - why would they believe you about Jesus when they learned that they can't believe you about Santa?

But if you remove Santa and his endless bag of gifts from the Christmas scene, what do you do instead? First of all, it's important to remember that people loved Christmastime long before there was Santa Claus.  Santa Claus, while initially based on St. Nicholas, is really an invention of Coca-Cola that the makers of movies, books, and TV shows went gaga over.

I have to admit that for many years, even up until last year, I didn't think Christmas was all that great. Once I got over the gift-opening excitement that occurred as a child, I just stopped caring about Christmas. I always felt a hole in my spirit at Christmas, and actually tried to start up some Christ-centered traditions in my family to try to fill that hole. I remember making an advent wreath one year and reading the Christmas story on Christmas Day on another. Not that my parents did anything wrong at Christmas, I just always felt like there was something missing. Yes, we talked about it being about Christmas, but I felt like all the Christians I knew were just paying the Nativity story lip service. (NOTE: they might not have been, that's just how I feel about it!)

This year, for the first time, I feel like that withering of my spirit around Christmastime has been halted. In fact, I feel like my spirit is learning to rejoice in Christmas. I think it's because for the first time, we're really DOING advent. Ethan is excited about all the little traditions we're starting, and I'm finally starting to feel like Christmas really is amazing, exciting, and transformative. So here's what we're doing this year, and I hope to be able to do more next year. (I'm hoping to add in some ideas based on St. Nicholas' life)

1) My co-worker wrote a beautiful Advent devotional and we've been using that along with a homemade advent wreath and candles on Sundays.

2) We've been doing the daily Jesse Tree devotional from Ann Voskamp's blog. Ethan loves the pictures and the Bible stories that I paraphrase, and I love reading her daily devotionals to go along with it. I see us doing this every year, and actually getting more out of it every year.

3) Ethan has a felt advent calendar that has little characters from the Christmas story in each pocket. No chocolate required, at least not this year! He just loves seeing who's next. We also made him a paper chain to rip off one link every night before bed. Believe it or not, he actually sleeps with the paper links!

4) I've been writing a devotional specifically for 2-5 year olds and we've been working through the Christmas material with Ethan this month. I have to say there's something incredible special about seeing my husband and son re-enact the Christmas story using stuffed animals. (I wish I had videotaped it!) Or trekking up and down the stairs with Ethan only to be told when we get to his room that there's no room and we'll have to sleep in the bathroom. I think we're at an advantage this year because he doesn't remember Christmas from last year, so this is all brand new to him. It's so beautiful to see him so engaged in the story that it comes out in his playtime. This morning he wanted to knock at the doors of all the inns again! I'm looking forward to the end of the week when we'll create a makeshift manger to put in his room, and wrap a baby doll to sleep in there until Christmas.

5) We do still give gifts, but I think I'm even almost at the point of not giving gifts at Christmas Day anymore. I love what Ann Voskamp does with her family - for the last 2 weeks leading up to Christmas, their family spends time each morning choosing a gift from the various catalogues - Compassion, World Vision, Samaritan's Purse, Gospel for Asia. My dad has been wanting our extended family to do this for a few years, and I think I might actually almost be ready. Although I did read something cool on facebook the other day - someone mentioned that their kids each get 3 gifts because that's how many Jesus got. I thought that was a neat way to bring perspective to the gift-giving. Because I LOVE to buy gifts for my kids, so I definitely need perspective.

But here's the question that's probably burning on the minds of some people reading this: Is my kid going to be the one telling all the kids that "Santa isn't real!"? Likely not. I think it's more likely that he'd be rather oblivious to those conversations when he's young, not really realizing that some kids actually believe he's a real guy. I never grew up believing Santa was a real guy but I also never told anyone else he wasn't real. It was basically a non-issue for me. I think those conversations are much more likely to happen with the child whose parents told him Santa was real, and when he finds out the truth, is determined to tell every other child around what he's just learned. Think about it - we read Curious George and Frosty the Snowman books, and never once has Ethan said "those guys are not real." They're just in a storybook so he doesn't actually expect Curious George to waltz into our home. So I feel like if we keep Santa to the storybooks, it probably won't be an issue. Because in all fairness, the Christmas Eve part of the Santa story is pretty fun, and I don't expect to be able to (or even to want to) fully isolate our children from that part of culture.

I just want to keep Christmas about Jesus, really and for real and for always. We all say that's what Christmas is really about, but we don't live it. I want to try to live it. A girl can try, right?

And now off my soapbox. Please don't hate me. :)

best kid ever

I love Ethan. I didn't think I could love him more, but as he grows and I see his little mind taking in so much, I just love him more and more!

Here's a picture of him traveling into space. in the backpack are all the supplies he needed, including a book about animals. I guess you never know what you'll encounter in space!

We were at the in-laws on the weekend, and suddenly we heard this little voice saying "guess what I did!" With a little trepidation, we went out back to check it out, and discovered that he had made his own clothesline by tucking the ends of a giant rubber tube into two separate doors. Yup, that's my kid. Doing laundry at 3 1/2!

We were having a discussion about bees the other day, and I asked him what bees make, (expecting the typical preschool answer, 'honey') and he says "strawberries!" I was a bit taken aback before I realized that he had taken my lessons on pollination to heart and was reminding me that bees help strawberry flowers turn into berries. So he's probably the only 3 year old in his class that can tell you about pollination! Love this guy.

munchies

This kid is so weird! In the past week he's chowed down on a stick of rhubarb without batting an eye, and eaten nearly a whole tub of chives. But he won't eat cooked beans or greens. Yeah.

Boys

I love how I'm starting to see the differences in the personalities of my boys. Right from the start we could see that Ethan was a very laid-back child - he would sit and play on the floor of my office for ages, happily content with a little ball and some rattles. Oliver, on the other hand, is a go-getter. Nothing stops this kid! Today I watched him attempt to climb a chair - he spent several minutes trying until he finally got up. When he did, he grinned and bobbed around a bit, then hopped down and moved on with his life. Mountain conquered! 

It's also interesting to see their different takes on dirt. Oliver LOVES to play in the dirt and sand - as you can see from the picture, he spends all our playground time playing with the sand toys and the sand itself. He likes to eat it a bit, but his favorite thing is putting sand into the buckets and dumping it back out. Conversely, Ethan is all about making up games, and he spends about 30 seconds digging in the sand. He helped me with some gardening a while back, and 5 seconds after getting his hand in the dirt, he had to rush inside to wash his hands! Strangely enough, apparently I used to be like that as well. And now I constantly have dirt under my nails and in the cracks of my feet! :)

the cup game

Oliver is driving me nuts recently, being super clingy, to the point that I can never set him down, unless it's for a meal or I sit down next to him. But sometimes, little things just put it all into perspective. Today he started playing a passing game - he passed me his cup, I'd pass it back, and so on. For a long time. And he just chuckled the whole time. And I'm 90% sure that he said "cup" a couple times. I guess those are the things you remember when you look on the time when your kids were small, instead of remembering days upon days of whining! I sure hope so anyway. :)

Walking!

So I set Oliver down on the floor while I was doing something today, and all of a sudden he started taking steps! It took me a few seconds to figure out what was happening, but he figured it out pretty quick - he was chuckling the whole time! I think he's going to be one happy kid once he gets the walking thing figured out.

Oliver's First Steps

I.am.robot.

We made a little robot the other day. I'll have to post a picture of the front sometime, he turned out quite cute. Unfortunately, Ethan didn't play with it much, even though he had movable arms. However, at one point he positioned it in front of the books and set up this book in front of it's face so it could read! Incidentally, this is the book my sister-in-law made for him, the one all about him. 

Maybe Ethan was trying to teach the robot all about him so that someday he could transfer his consciousness into the robot...whoa Christie, too much Big Bang Theory!

Time flies

Guess I haven't posted in, oh, 6 months or so! So much has changed, and so much has stayed the same. Oliver started crawling at 7 months, which didn't surprise us much since he was pushing himself around backwards at 3 months. He's a real go-getter. Sitting still is not for this boy! He's almost 9 months now, and he's practicing his solo standing. So far his record is 10 seconds. We get a laugh out of giving him something to hold, which he then stares at very intensely while not even realizing he's standing. Then he looks up and...TIMBER!

Ethan is going crazy with the talking now. In my opinion, he speaks quite clearly, and his vocabulary always surprises me. And the best part is that he's always saying silly things. The other day at supper we were just about to pray when he popped a piece of ravioli in his mouth. He spat it out and announced "Thank you God for HOT food?!!" We tried praying after that but couldn't get much out past the chuckles.

I'm just happy to be a mom these days. We've been tossing around the idea of looking for a bungalow in an older area with a gigantic yard, but I don't think it's going to be happening yet. I need to remember that God wants us to be content with what He's given us. So here's me being content. I love my silly, crazy, tantrum-y 3 year old. I love my smiley, man-on-the-move, currently-screaming-in-his-crib baby. I love my wise, doting, and (dare I say it?) silly-with-the-kids husband. I love my house, even with toys scattered everywhere. I love my little yard with it's 4 kinds of berry bushes. And I love God, who, in his great wisdom and infinite grace, has given me this life.