The Reason for the Season

This year, we really tried to scale things back and focus more on the true meaning of Christmas.  Instead of overloading on presents, each kid got four gifts from us on Christmas Day:

1. Something cool 
2. Something for school
3. Something you'll wear, and 
4. Something you'll share.  

They were able to understand how each gift fit into each category, and take the time to explore and appreciate each gift before jumping to the next one.  Of course, Santa also brought them each one additional present and they got some little stuff in their stockings.  But overall, it felt much more reasonable and less commercial.  And even though we changed up our gift-giving strategy, we still kept up with most of our usual Christmas traditions, and tried out a few new ones.  For example:

-Every year I give the kids a special treat on the day after Thanksgiving to kick off the Christmas season, and every year it's the same thing...Christmas jammies! By now the kids have caught on to the tradition so it's not really a surprise anymore (it's also a dead giveaway that I don't let them get dressed until they open it), but it's still exciting:

-We decorated a gingerbread house for our mantel.  This year, I'd say at least 80% of the candy actually made it onto the house instead of going straight into the kids' stomachs:

-We set up and decorated our Costco Christmas tree and each kid got to hang their favorite ornaments:

-Every year, Danny is newly mesmerized by our gaudy, electronic Christmas tree.  This year was no exception...at first.  Unfortunately, however, he blasted the brassy music so loud and so often that it wasn't long before his older siblings started complaining that it was "annoying."  Since Danny wants to be just like them, he soon started declaring that he, too, thought it was "annoying" and did not want to listen to it anymore.  We're hopeful that he'll rediscover his love for the tree next year, but this year it was pretty much ignored for most of December:

-We (read: I) designed our family Christmas card.  This year, we (read: I) raised the stakes a bit with a full-length poem on the back that we (read: I) wrote, summarizing 2018.  We're (read: I'm) a little worried that a precedent has been set and we (read: I) will be expected to write a new poem every year:

-We went ice skating.  This time, we went to Gallagher Way, which is a new-ish park right next to Wrigley Field.  The rink was small (and the rental price was exorbitant), but the kids didn't mind!

-We visited Santa (who unexpectedly but conveniently opened his doors right next to the skating rink while we were there, allowing us to avoid making a special trip -- although we obviously didn't get the chance to dress for the occasion).  Aaron asked for Minecraft legos, Jill asked for a talking unicorn, and Danny asked for super smashers.  We--I mean Santa took notes:

-We baked lots and lots and lots of Christmas cookies--all different shapes and sizes and flavors:

-Danny and I checked out the Christmas trains at the Nature Conservatory.  There are only three train sets, and they're pretty basic.  But he could have stood and stared at them for hours if we hadn't been late to pick up Aaron and Jill from school:

-We did the advent calendar (almost) every night.  We actually had three different advent calendars this year, but our favorite is the one I used when I was little:

-We sang lots of Christmas songs, including a new one that Dora taught the kids to sing in Romanian:

-We drank hot chocolate and decorated more cookies at their school "Winter Wonderland" event:

-Aaron and Jill both got to sing in the Christmas program at church!  Just two more years before Danny will be old enough to join them:

-We went to Oma and Opa's house the weekend before Christmas, where we got to hang out with baby Eliza, who really isn't much of a baby anymore.  In fact, we recently learned she will be passing the title of "baby" on to her new brother or sister this summer!

-We made chocolate gingerbread man pops with Oma.  They were a bit messy, but oh-so-delicious:

-Oma put "beanboozled" jelly bellies in the kids' stockings.  Each color of jelly bean had a tasty version and a disgusting version.  You never knew if you would get chocolate...or dog food; juicy pear...or boogers; popcorn...or rotten egg.  Aaron refused to try his, so I did it for him and the smell of dog food on my breath was enough to literally make him throw up.  I'm not kidding.  Danny, on the other hand, ate his whole box like they were normal jelly beans.  Each time he popped one in his mouth he'd shrug and say, "Hmm!  Yummy!"  By the time the box was gone, he reeked of rotten eggs -- the cutest rotten eggs you ever saw:

-We watched a lot of new movies.  The most notable was the original Star Wars trilogy, which Aaron got from Aunt Christy for Christmas.  Here's a shot of him during the scene where Luke battles Darth Vader and learns who his father really is:

-We went to the Christmas Eve service at our church in Chicago.  This was our first time going to this service and we really enjoyed it!  They had activity packs for the kids, a Christmas story-reading, and open flames...all the kids' favorite things:

-We mixed up "reindeer food" with our neighbors and then sprinkled it on our front lawn on Christmas Eve to feed the rats...I mean reindeer:

-We had Christmas cookies and eggnog by the fire on Christmas Eve while we read the Christmas story from the Bible, followed by Twas the Night before Christmas:

-We woke up and opened presents together on Christmas morning.  This year, we had a special surprise for the kids.  Their "something cool" gift was a Disney trip!

-We went to the Hjelmgrens' house after lunch on Christmas Day to see Chris's side of the family, eat yummy food, and open more presents:

-A few days after Christmas, we went to Winter Wonderfest at Navy Pier!  This year, Danny and Jill were tall enough to go on most of the big rides.  Of course, that didn't necessarily mean that Chris and I were qualified to go with them.  The teacup ride pretty much did me in, and Chris almost puked on the tilt-o-whirl.  It's almost like we can watch our youth being appropriated by our children in real time:

-We went to Macy's to see the Christmas windows and the tree in the Walnut Room (where we had to snatch a quick picture before they made us leave because we were too cheap to get a table).  We also made the mistake of walking through the toy section, where Jill immediately fell in love with every stuffed tiger on the shelf.  Every single one:

Reflecting on this season, we hope our children learned that love is really the most important thing you can give or receive at Christmastime.  Unless you're a chicken.  Then you're screwed.