On the 13th day of Christmas - A Christmas Lights Tradition
1st a Tip from Papa Secor
To get good photos of Outdoor lights take your photos at dusk.
It is sad to think of this house, sitting lonely and dark this year,
surrounded by brightly lit homes filled with people and Christmas.
Here's one at Dark
And one at Dusk.
Magical!
2nd - The Tradition
At Christmas time we take many drives at night to see the houses hooked up to music and to peruse the assortment of bedazzled holiday homes in our neighborhood. We also keep a list and check it more than twice as we decide who will win
the not-so-well-known
Secor Family Christmas Light Award
In the early years we just picked hands down favorites.
Last year, well, we didn't do it! I guess Max threw a wrench into that one.
However, in previous years we let each family member pick their favorite
and then awarded a prize to that home.
We usually do it annonymously - but 2 years ago the girls wanted to ring doorbells.
That was really fun. We didn't get any wierdo's.
One older couple was so excited they wanted everyone to get out
of the car so they could meet us
and they asked us all kinds of questions. It was fun to see how excited they were
that someone liked their lights!
Usually we give either a small amount of money like $1-5 or we buy a CD from the dollar store that we attach a note to. We don't give food or anything really valuable since we don't really know these people.
This year we are still planning on each of us picking our own house - BUT, there has been talk about looking for certain criteria, such as Izzy only likes houses with Reindeer!
You can pass out all the awards at once. Or you can let 1 someone choose a house on each light seeing outing.
To top it all off - prepare cocoa in disposable styrofoam cups WITH LIDS and/or goodies to have in the car - and Christmas Carols on the radio, of course!
Another Tradition
Growing up, on Christmas eve we would each hang our stocking by the fireplace one at a time. I love that tradition, completely. Except, that I would like to see our stockings all season. So last year we decided do it the same only earlier in the season. Perfect!
A Final Note
Something I am learning about these traditions, really it is just a life lesson in general.
GO WITH THE FLOW
If you are forgetting to do things, or there isn't enough time for everything,
then maybe something needs to go.
This year I choose 3 activities that we would do each night and rotate so each child could have something to do. Well, more often than not we only accomplish 1 sometimes 2 things each day. That tells me that it is more than we need. So, maybe a better situation would be to rotate the
3 Traditions over 3 days, only doing 1 a day.
Dynamics change every year as the kids age. This year Izzy is NOT AT ALL interested in putting ornaments on the advent tree, while Alex and Max are highly interested.
We could have a fight about it each night.
We could cut snuggle time short, I could insist that
THESE ARE THE RULES AND YOU MUST PUT AN ORNAMENT ON
or I can just go with the flow and tweak and adjust where needed.
Tonight at FHE
I shared my feelings about a Hymn that brought me to tears.
Max was running around with a
wooden garage sale sign post
using it as a sword.
He attacked my lovely paper cones with it.
THEN,
just as I was describing how I thought Mary must have felt to be the
mother of baby Jesus
MAX pounded on like 20 keys of the piano as hard as he could.
It very well could have been the spark that ignited the fire
under my wrath - or Matt's
BUT instead
we laughed
paused
let the moment die down
and moved on
with a nice finish
but ending quickly so as not to push our luck.
Good Luck with your traditions.
If anyone wants to share your own - or comments
- or just say HEY YEAH CRAZY CHICK!
Go For It!
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