'Tis the Season!

When referring to Christmas we often speak of it as being a season.  More than a single day.  In our family we like to put the Christmas tree and decorations up as soon after Thanksgiving as we can get to it. We begin listening to Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. Its a fun time of year, with the anticipation and all, the good will that seems to pervade most of society, and the sparkle and excitement that fill any little kid that's around for Christmas time. Everyone has their favorite family traditions to observe that include insane and excessive baking, favorite movies to watch, service and visits to make, advent count-downs to do, treats and goodies to deliver, traditional meals and drinks to prepare and consume, caroling rounds to make, scripture readings and re-enactments to do, work, church, and other parties and performances to attend, and a host of other family traditions and practices to observe during the season.  Our family is no different.

As we reach the point of having three fourths of our children married, and over a dozen grandkids, we are exploring the new territory of observing and celebrating Christmas as an extended family, as in us with our kids and their kids.  As our kids marry, leave home, and establish their own family traditions, we are excited to be able to participate with them and their families in their Christmas celebrations and continuing to have them be a part of our Christmas celebrations.  Especially since right now most of them live relatively near by and are much easier to visit than it has been in years past when they were scattered across the nation and lived far away.

For the last several years, as kids have left home, putting up Christmas decorations have gotten down to just the two of us, with Brombeere engineering the majority of the decorating and me helping out here and there as assigned.  This year, however, we had lots of help.  We had Erdbeere, Heidlebeere, and Maulbeere and their families visiting for Thanksgiving so we decided to get our tree out while they were all here and enlist their help.  It was a lot of fun to see the kids getting excited and helping!

Maybe it was because it wasn't their own decorations so they were new and different.  Maybe it is that way anyway at their own homes because the tree and decorations are special and only come our once a year, but the kids were really exited to see and help put it all together and on the tree - it was a lot of fun!

I personally like lots of lights on the tree and since we had plenty of help we got lots on.  Brombeere had replaced a bunch of our lights that had worn out and quit working last year.

So, because we wanted to have the kids help before people started heading home, our tree went up two days after Thanksgiving, on that Saturday.  Then, because we knew we were going to be traveling for Christmas day, we had Schwartzbeere and Maulbeere back over again a couple of weeks later to open presents.  This was Duckie's first Christmas, which is always interesting.  At that age they don't know what they're supposed to be interested in and often are more taken by the wrapping and paper than the actual gift.

With lots of prompting, he got the job done.

While we could and have mailed gifts to the kids, its always so much nicer to be there and watch as they open their gifts.

So we sat around the living room taking turns opening gifts, a tradition from the family I grew up in that has been carried on in our family.

As seems to be normal, the littlest one got behind because he was too busy playing with the paper to be interested in opening anything.

Himbeere was there for the festivities, he cheered right up for the day.

Right in the swing of things.

The Maulbeeres were in on this "first opening".  Always the Christmas socks first.

That's another tradition at our house - socks first, then the gifts.

Despite the efforts of some, there are always some real surprises in the gift opening.

This year Brombeere got surprised a couple of times by the things she got.  It was a lot of fun to watch.

A nice "wreckage" picture - despite the efforts to contain the mess, by the end of the gifts there is always a mess.

That was it for opening gifts in the middle of December.  A couple of weeks later we were off to Moosebeere's house to spend a few days.

They had a really nice tree, lots of decorations, lots of presents, lots of anticipation among the kids.

Some found it hard to observe the "hands off" rules that usually accompanies Christmas.

As it was, we were there on Christmas day, which was a Sunday.  So present opening had to wait until after church.  But then it was full steam ahead!

Christmas is best with little kids.  They are so fun to watch!

They get so excited, especially the ones that are a little bit older and remember what its all about.

Young Miss E really wanted a "rainbow scarf" - she was so excited to see it!

The hat goes right on!

Nice to see I wasn't the only one taking tons of pictures.

Everybody was getting into the act!

Now I have some reading to catch up on.

After a Christmas session at Moosebeere's house it was back home to our own house and tree.

A few days after we got back from visiting Moosebeere, Blaubeere and her kids came over for the last Christmas session.

These presents had been sitting under our tree all the time we were celebrating with the other kids, just waiting for the time Blaubeere could make it over.

There's something to be said for spreading out the fun of Christmas.

By the time we got to this session of Christmas it had gotten to be so long since we wrapped the gifts that we had forgotten what some of them were.  Double the fun of opening them!

Bromeere, who does most of the gift shopping for the grandkids, does such a good job.

Its so fun watching each of the kids open their stuff.  They have such a variety of reactions.

All in all, it was another very good gift session.

There's a lot to be said for stretching out the Christmas season like this. This year we got to be there with all but two of our grandkids for a session of Christmas gifts. That was nice. I don't know if this year will turn out to be unique or if we will repeat it next year, or some other year in the future.  We'll have to see where the kids live and how it works out with taking turns between our house and the other side of each family.  But for now, this was a real fun year in which we got to see so many of our kids and grandkids as they celebrated Christmas and opened their gifts.  If the opportunity were to present itself again it would be worth doing again.