Tonight as we drove home from an extended family Christmas gathering, reading aloud and singing, I was reminded of an old article I wrote for our newsletter several years ago—Christmas in the Car. I will post it in its entirety below—gotta sneak in those family times any chance we get as our kids get older!

From 2004:

If your children are growing up as fast as ours are, and if you travel distances to church, piano lessons, grandparents, etc. as we do, you might want to try some of our “Christmas in the Car” tips. Basically, every year I see the holiday time slipping away from us. The girls are taking college classes; off to Spanish or piano; teaching their own guitar, language arts, and piano students; working at their jobs; and more. Every time I think we’re going to have a sing-along/reading time tonight, someone announces that she has a Spanish test tomorrow and has to study all evening! Thus, our “Christmas in the Car” time was born.

We spend a great deal of time in the vehicle each week—driving to lessons, church, grandparents, etc.—all forty-five minutes away from us minimum. Being the efficiency expert that I am (of sorts!), I began utilizing this time in the vehicle to keep some of our holiday traditions alive. Try some of our “Christmas in the Car” ideas—and keep those traditions going strong:

*Sing carols as you drive.

*Listen to Christmas radio dramas (Focus on the Family has good ones), Uncle Dan and Aunt Sue Christmas stories, Christmas books on tape, Adventures in Oddysey Christmas stories, etc. as you are driving.

*Sing your way through the Christmas story. Start with “Mary, Did You Know?” and move on to “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem,” then move onto anything having to do with the shepherds (“The First Noel,” “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “Angels We Have Heard on High”). Next move into the birth/after the birth with “Silent Night,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Away in a Manger,” and “We Three Kings.” Lastly, sing of the joy of his arrival: “Joy to the World” and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

*Tell the Christmas story in one sentence increments as you go around the van, person-by-person. (This gets interesting with the little ones who might have them fleeing Herod’s wrath before Jesus is even born!)

*If a passenger can read without being sick, you might read your way through a favorite (pictureless) holiday book. We enjoy reading Cosmic Christmas by Max Lucado and The Birth by Gene Edwards. Everyone looks forward to reading another chapter the next time we get in the van.

*Likewise, we read “devotional” type books about Christmas while we drive. This year, we are enjoying short chapters in the book Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas (see review). We have also enjoyed Christmas Stories From the Heart, The Christmas Reader, and more in years past.

*Use the driving time to memorize the Christmas story from the book of Luke. (We like to assign one verse to each person and go from person to person.)

*We enjoy memorizing all the verses from a certain Christmas song each year. In years past, we have memorized “Away in a Manger,” “Twelve Days of Christmas,” and “We Three Kings.” We can still sing most of the verses today!

*Drive by Christmas lights on your evening travels.

*Go through a drive-through or walk-through nativity while driving by one.

*Deliver goodies to those in route.

*Play “20 Questions Christmas-Style” or “Name That Christmas Tune.”

*New game: A person picks three things about the Christmas story that are really true or just thought to be true (or embellished, such as the little drummer boy playing for Jesus), and the others try to guess which two things are really in the Bible and which one is not. This is eye-opening.

*Sing whatever Christmas song you are reminded of by the decorations you see—stars, snowmen, angels, etc.

*Make up your own humorous twelve days of Christmas song, with each person getting to add their own items to the list as you sing around the van.

*Play the ABC Christmas game—“What I love about Christmas is A for angel, B for baby, C for candy, etc.” Go around and each person starts with A and tries to remember what was previously said. (This is a spin-off of the “I went to Grandma’s and I took A for applesauce, B for blankets, etc.)

*My personal favorite: Have someone write your holiday cooking and shopping list and holiday menus down for you while you drive and dictate to them. (Be forewarned: No comments about the spelling or penmanship are allowed when the child is done writing for you!)

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“Linus’ reading of the story of the Nativity was, quite simply, the dramatic highlight of the season.” Harriet Van Horne in the “New York World Telegram” December 1965

Every year our family enjoys reading about Christmas traditions and songs—how they began, what they mean, etc. One of my favorite readings is the story of how “A Charlie Brown Christmas” came about—and continues to bless people today. Read my “story behind the Charlie Brown Christmas” below aloud to your family—then watch the movie (or at least check out the given links from youtube). Have fun!

On Thursday, December 9, 1965 (nearly fifty years ago!), “A Charlie Brown Christmas” made its debut on CBS on television screens all over the United States. Surprising the network executives, this darling Christmas story was an immediate hit. It seems that its creator, Charles Schulz, battled with the powers-that-be at the network concerning the show’s religious content (CBS thought it was too religious) and the kids’ voices (citing that they should be professional actors, not children). Additionally, they felt that Vince Guaraldi’s theme music was too modern for kids’ tastes. (The jazz soundtrack has, by the way, become a classic.)

Rumor has it that through the years it has been suggested that Linus’ reading of the Christmas story from Luke be taken out of the movie. However, forty-five years later, this classic still contains that powerful passage from Luke, those sweet child voices, and that catchy music*—and each year the true story of Jesus’ birth and the reason for the season—is proclaimed via the secular media.

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One of our favorite ways to stay close to our kids was always spending one-on-one time with them. Yes, we had seven children in fourteen years. Yes, we were busy. Yes, my husband worked long hours.

But just about nothing got in the way of staying close to our kids. It was that important. (And it still is today with our adult children ages seventeen to thirty-two!)

Carving out one-on-one time with our kids in a busy household is not easy. Everything is vying for our time and attention. However, one way that we found to do this was to “make a date.” That is, make appointments and actual schedule that time so that (1) the child knew it was coming and (2) we knew that it was already planned and the child knew about it—so we were less likely to cancel. (Somehow, saying that we are going to have more time together just doesn’t work that well!)

We did this in a number of ways—half birthday dinners with Mom and Dad, Wonderful Wednesdays, “sit closest to Mom days,” and many more…all of which give me great joy in their memories.

Recently we have added a downloadable product to our store to help families set up these “appointments” with their kids. They are called “Keep Close Coupons.” The title alone tells your child that time with him or her is important—it is purposeful. That you want time with your child and that you want to be close to him.

I have tips in the Keep Close Coupon front matter describing how to use these coupons, so I thought I would share them here in a blog post as well. These tips apply whether you buy our coupons or create your own. 🙂

(For more on building strong relationships with your kids, see our podcast episode, Ten Tips for Staying Close During Intense Training Times With Tweens and Teens.)

Thoughts about these coupons

(1) There are a lot of coupons for special things floating around, but we like these because their name tells the why behind them. We are going to do this or that because we want to keep close.

(2) Don’t pass them out constantly—and possibly not even once a week. (Other coupons, like affirmation ones, are good for weekly or lunch box types of coupons.)

(3) These should be used to communicate to the child that you want to do something special together so that you can be close to each other.

(4) Try to do low to no cost things so that it doesn’t become a thing where your child always has to DO something in order to be with you. (See ideas below.)

(5) Alternate with just Mom; just Dad; and Mom and Dad together with the child.

(6) The activities together do not have to be long. (Again, see ideas below.) They can be as short as an hour long card game or a walk in the neighborhood.

(7) While you don’t want these to get expensive, if you have pre-teens and teens, do plan to incorporate some food-related outings! It can be simple like an ice cream cone from McDonalds, but our experience has been that tweens and teens love to eat!

(8) Be sure that your times together are not always so activity-driven that you can’t talk and just be together. For example, while going to the movies might be fun, it would be better to go to the park and take a picnic snack and walk around the lake so that you can really connect.

(9) Take notes about what your child likes, what outings or times together meant a lot to him before, etc. Our oldest son thrived on my husband meeting him in the driveway to shoot baskets at ten every night after Ray had put the littles to bed. Some things are more special to some kids than other things are.

(10) If you are giving these to teens, you might not want to put a date on the coupon. While it is easier to schedule with an elementary child (Saturday morning breakfast sandwich at the park), teens’ schedules are often challenging to work around. You want to give him the what then determine a time together that works. (These should not feel like obligations to the teens—like time that you are taking away from other things.)

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We all want to raise children who love learning—and if they love homeschooling, too, well, that’s even better. I wanted my kids to love learning and homeschooling so much twenty-five years ago that I wouldn’t teach a child to read unless he could learn within a few weeks with no tears. (Otherwise, we put it on the back burner for a couple more months.) I was serious about this love for learning stuff!

However, in an effort to be sure our kids enjoy homeschooling, we often run into something that makes it hard for us parents to enjoy it—and something that actually handicaps our children in the future. This concept is one of indulgent homeschooling vs fun homeschooling.

Just like our children “don’t like” this or “don’t want” that or “have to have” this or “can’t be happy without” this–and thus, are often not happy with the “normal” things of life–so it is with our children in homeschooling.

Before I come off sounding like an ogre, I want to assure you that we had a fun homeschool. If you were to ask our children (seven of them ages seventeen through thirty-three) if our homeschool was fun, you would hear answers like the following:

“Oh yeah! Dad used to use these huge red pressboard bricks to teach Bible stories. We would build the temple, Zacchaeus’ tree, and even Jesus’ boat!”

“Fun? How many kids do you know who got to sleep at the top of the jungle gym at Science Central overnight—WITH their parents!”

“I can’t imagine more fun than having your mom read to you for two hours every morning and two hours every afternoon. School was definitely fun at our house!”

“It was a blast! When Mom and Dad got us new books and other fun things from the homeschool convention, they would wake us up at midnight when they got home and show us everything and start reading them to us!”

However, one reason that our children found homeschooling fun was because everything didn’t always have to be fun. Just like an indulgent child can’t be happy unless she gets to have a friend overnight, order pizza, and buy new make up to do make-overs often, a homeschooled child will not think school is fun if he has to have fun all the time. I call this the fun factor in homeschooling.

So, strange as it may seem, my first suggestion to making school fun and helping your kids love learning and love homeschooling is to not try to make everything fun.

Our kids knew fun times were coming. They knew that Mom and Dad loved learning and loved homeschooling and would make things fun at times. They knew that we had something fun up our sleeves to pull out any time.

But they also knew that school was their occupation–and it was often just plain hard work sometimes. And it needed to be done. Day in and day out. Just like Dad went to his job and worked his tail off–so Mom and the kids do the same at home.

Our mantra was “daytime is for learning and working and evenings are for fun and family.” (Obviously, we did fun things during the day too—see partial list above….but they knew that they couldn’t just do anything they wanted during the day. They needed to be learning, working, growing. It was their occupation. (And yes, we did have play time for youngers; breaks; etc.!)

We didn’t need to have bells and whistles all the time because they began to love normal (just like their parents did—hint hint–modeling!). They always knew the expectations, and they knew that every day they had to get up and follow a routine for learning, growing, becoming, and maturing.

They learned the joy of following a loose (block) school schedule, setting goals and meeting them, completing tasks, and of gaining knowledge.

They knew that there were many things we do just because they are the right things to do. Every subject, every day doesn’t have to be fun. Chores don’t always have to be games and contests–or rewarded (though sometimes they were!).

Independent lists were there to keep them on track. They were their to-do lists every day.

Chores were a part of our day because chores make a home run smoothly—and give us more time in the evenings for fun family activities.

We taught our children a contentment in homeschooling–in our way of life—that made the fun even more fun, the special even more special, and the extraordinary even more extraordinary.

The Fun Factor in Homeschooling–the fun begins when the normal is good too.

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In my last blog post, I talked about how to determine which traditions to keep for everybody and which traditions will likely go by the wayside. These are obviously very personal decisions – and you will probably want to discuss these with your older children.

There are some other traditions that we have kept in part. These traditions are ones that we still do with our at-home kids, but we invite the olders to as well.

The key to having traditions that you want to include everybody for but that you do not want to obligate them to is to use the phrasing that my husband uses all the time in dealing with our older children:

This is an invitation, not an obligation!

This is not only a Christmas tip, but if you have older kids, especially if they are married, you want them to feel included, but at the same time it is unwise to put pressure on them to do and be everything – especially when it comes to extended family. If our older children went to every single event that the grandparents and the grandparents’ siblings have, Memorial Day parties, Christmas get-togethers, etc., they would not have enough time for their own families.

The same thing is true with things that we continued on at Christmas time with our tweens and teens as the older siblings went to college and/or got married. We want to make the adults feel included, but we do not want to infringe on their own family life.

So for some of our Christmas festivities, those that they and we have determined together will not necessarily always include everybody, we remind them that this is an “invitation, not obligation.”

We say this often, and we want them to know that we mean it. We want them to put their own families first. We want them to put their spouse before their siblings. We want them to put their home about their parents. This wording gives them the freedom to do so – and remind them continually that we place a high importance upon their adult lives.

See this post where I describe our “in-laws-first Christmas”—and why I recommend having this!

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the podcast episode about Christmas With College and Adult Kids!

The post Christmas With College & Adult Children: Invitation vs. Obligation appeared first on Character Ink.

One of the things that was difficult for me in having college and adult kids with Christmas was not being able to continue all of the traditions that we had formally done. I mentioned earlier that through homeschooling, we actually spent a lot of time on Christmas. Our entire December was centered around Christmas readings, unit studies, Christmas baking and cooking, and more.

As our oldest child was married and in the next two girls were in college, they were home less and less. At first, I continued the traditions during the daytime with my kids were still homeschooling. But what was I going to do about the evening and weekend traditions?

One of the things that I had to decide early on was which traditions were important enough to try to include everybody and which traditions were not. When our son was first married, we decorated for Christmas without him – four months after his wedding. Imagine my surprise when he came into the house, to all the Christmas decorations and the tree, and was nearly teary-eyed. “You decorated without us?” I was heartbroken! Here I had been trying not to impose upon him and his new wife, and I left him out of something that was very important to him. A couple of years later, our oldest daughter, our second child, was in Texas in college. The kids went together and flew her home for two days just so that she would not miss decorating.

So I learned early on that decorating for Christmas was one tradition that the kids would want to keep even as adults. Yes, this was something to keep for the entire family.

So one thing I recommend with older children is to decide with the kids what things are important enough to save for when they’re home from college and for the local adult kids, and which things would just be for the at-home kids.

This will obviously be based on trial and error like ours above as well as on what you have just found are most memorable to your kids.

Here are some traditions that we keep with our college and adult kids in part or in whole:

1. Christmas decorating night – this is a party night for our family, and nobody wants to miss it. We have purposely moved this to be Thanksgiving weekend when the college kids are home. We have continued with our appetizer party, Nativity setting up (dozens of nativities of various sizes), drawing of names for the sibling exchange (a new tradition–see future post), putting up the tree and decorating with our homemade ornaments that we made in our unit studies throughout the years, reading Christmas stories, singing carols, and just being together.

2. Our own Christmas eve – we always had a protocol of a party on Christmas eve with a few presents and lots of games followed by our traditional Christmas day. Even though once our children began getting married, I gave Christmas eve and Christmas day to my children-in-laws’ families (see future post!), everybody still wanted a Christmas eve and Christmas day at home. Thus, our own Christmas eve – filled with games, fun exchanges, appetizers, stories, songs, and staying up half of the night – continued on but just on a different day other than Christmas eve. It is not uncommon at all for us to have our “Christmas eve” on December 27, 28, or 29. It doesn’t matter to any of us, just so we have a Christmas eve.

3. Our own Christmas day – even when our kids were little, we did the grandparent thing whenever that was held, but had our own Christmas day – regardless of whether that was on the 25th. What I mean by that is that if we had a lot to do on the 25th with extended family, we made the 26th or the 27th our Christmas day. This was something that the older kids wanted to continue, and we do so today. So we have our Christmas eve whenever we can find an open evening and has the next day free – and the next day is our Christmas day. The Christmas story, exchanging gifts, playing games, taking naps, and having a Christmas dinner are all still the things that we do on our very own “Christmas day” with all seven of our children and any spouses (and now a grandbaby!).

There are other things that we intersperse here and there, like our “White Christmas night,” which I talk about in another post. We also about every other year do a big family Christmas outing, just like we used to do when the kids were little – for anybody who is available. This usually involves a local play or the Star of Bethlehem planetarium show, etc. While everybody is not available for these, we do try to open these to anybody who can come.

Stay with us as we talk about “invitation vs. obligation” in a few days!

P.S. Listen to the podcast episode,”Christmas With College and Adult Children,” in which I give all of the upcoming posts orally with a succinct handout for you! 🙂

The post Christmas With College & Adult Children: Continuing Earlier Traditions appeared first on Character Ink.

In a previous blog post, I discussed the importance of finding out those traditions that mean a lot to your college and adult kids so that they do not feel left out of the things you are doing in your home – especially the things that you used to do when they were little. In another post, I talked about the invitation versus obligation. (Read that here…that’s important!)

This post will focus on the latter. We try to continue many traditions with our high school kids and our college kids living at home, but at the same time, we don’t want to leave out the adult children who are away from home–or impose upon them either. This is a fine balance. Because of this, we recommend that you invite them to some of those things, but be sure that they do not see those things as obligations.

Also, especially for your married children, we recommend that you encourage them to begin their own traditions in their own homes. If they feel like they constantly have to come to your house throughout December in order not to disappoint you or miss a “tradition,” they will likely not have the time or the initiative to begin their own traditions. Regardless of how much you might want all of your children there all of the time, we encourage you to help your adult children see their marriages and their families as their first priorities.

So what about the other traditions? Yes, invite them when appropriate, but don’t push.

We love to invite the kids back for a baking and/or cookie decorating night some times! Again–invitation, not obligation! 🙂

Here are a few traditions we like to do:

1. Christmas stories—The older kids especially have fond memories of reading Christmas stories altogether throughout the month of December, on our decorating night, in the evenings leading up to Christmas, on Christmas Eve, and Christmas day. Because of this, I save a few of our favorite stories (see upcoming posts for some of our favorite Christmas read alouds for the whole group–many of which are available for free online!) to read when the family is altogether, such as on decorating night and our Christmas Eve. I have also gotten all of the children as Christmas gifts some of our favorite compilations of Christmas stories so that they would have them for their families and future families.

image via IMDb

2. Christmas movies— we all have fond memories of watching Christmas movies together. One Christmas movie that is a tradition that we still invite the older kids back for is our White Christmas movie night. This movie was a favorite for all of us to watch together. It has become even more special in the last ten years or so when we made it an official White Christmas Night by adding “white spaghetti” (fettuccini alfredo with shrimp!) to our evening. We try to have this on the evening in December when some of the grown kids can come back home, and we do invite them – but again, it is an invitation not an obligation. It was so cute the other day when our new daughter-in-law (of one year) asked when we were doing White Christmas this year, stating that she had never been to one because they were always away at college when we did it. I love it that even my children-in-law look forward to our family traditions.

3. Family Christmas outing – through the years we have taken one outing during the Christmas season as a family and made it a big occasion. This might have been going to a Christmas play, a musical, a movie, or the planetarium for the Star of Bethlehem show. We usually went out to eat and/or went out for dessert on that night as well. This is something that we still invite the older kids back for.

4. Movie on Christmas night— I mentioned in a previous post how we have given Christmas day to our kids-in-law’s family. Because our extended families no longer have get togethers on Christmas day, this left Christmas day kind of empty for those at home. Therefore, we added going to a special movie on Christmas night. Anybody who doesn’t have anything going on that night is invited to come.

Yes, it is sad for me to think of all the traditions that have gone by the way… spending the entire month of December making Christmas ornaments, cooking and baking together, singing nearly every night around the tree, and so on. Those of you with small children don’t skimp on your holiday traditions. And those of you with grown kids – remember those days fondly.

I love it that my own kids love and enoy their siblings-in-law!

(Please note that I am an affiliate for Amazon. I receive a small commission when you click on my links below. Thanks so much for your support of this blog!)

Favorite movies:

• White Christmas
• Elf
• Christmas With the Kranks
• Home Alone 1
• Home Alone 2
• Home Alone 3
• Christmas Eve
• Charlie Brown Christmas
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• Christmas Shoes

The post Christmas With College & Adult Children: Tips for Keeping Traditions with Grown Children appeared first on Character Ink.

Christmas is a time of spreading good cheer. It is a time of giving gifts. It is a time that we remember the best gift ever given to the earth. And yet it quickly becomes a time of selfishness when it comes to get-togethers, “getting” Christmas Eve or Christmas day for your get together when your kids are grown, etc.

Maybe this was easier for me because when our kids were little, we decided that we would not have a Christmas day that was filled with running around to multiple grandparents, especially with divorced ones making another place to go. Thus, if we had an extended family get together on the 25th, our Christmas day was simply a different day. It was easy, and our children came to realize that if they did not wake up to open presents on the actual December 25th, that was fine. Christmas was just longer and even more fun!

Regardless of the reason for the ease of it, when our first child married eleven years ago, I knew that I didn’t want the traditional “part of the day here and part of the day there.” Joshua married a gal who was the only girl in a family of three children. I knew from the beginning that I did not want to request Christmas Eve or Christmas day as one of our get together days simply because I did not want to ask my new daughter-in-law, the only girl in her family, to give up time with her family in order to have our Christmas. I also didn’t think it sounded very fun to have an hour or two or three here or there, with kids coming and going and no real family unity.

Thus, when Joshua and Lisa got married, I told Joshua up front that her family could have Christmas day and potentially even Christmas Eve if desired. We would simply have our Christmas celebrations at a different time/different date. (During part of this time, my dad had Christmas Eve—and my kids tried to make it to that whenever possible.)

As I mentioned earlier in the blog post about continuing with traditions, my kids did not want a couple of hours with siblings just dropping in. They wanted a day together – and even the evening before. Thus, our Christmas Eve and Christmas day have been as early as the 21st and 22nd of December and as late as the 29th and 30th. It doesn’t matter to us.

Fast forward eleven years, and two of our kids were married last year. One of them, our second son, married a young lady whose mother died suddenly of an aneurism nearly six years ago. I have been even more grateful for the tradition of “the in-laws-first-Christmas” I’m happy that my son and daughter-in-law, she the firstborn in a family of four children, do not have to choose between coming to our house or spending the day with her father and siblings.

Our third daughter was married last year, and her husband’s family lives in South Carolina. I am equally happy that we have chosen this route for them as his parents do not get to see them as much as we do. I am thrilled that they will get to spend several days with his parents and get to have Christmas Eve and Christmas day with his family.

In a season of goodwill among men and selflessness, is it too much to ask not to have things our own way? Is it too much to ask we would put the new members of our family – our daughters-in-law and sons-in-law – before our own wants and desires?

I know this wouldn’t work for everybody as not everyone would be in town on the right dates, etc., to “do Christmas” a different date. But if nothing else, I hope this post leaves you with the thought of really considering your grown kids and their new families when making your holiday plans. And helping them to focus on their own new family. And spreading goodwill to all! 🙂

P.S. Listen to the podcast episode about Christmas With College and Adult Kids!

The post Christmas With College & Adult Children: The In-Laws-First Christmas appeared first on Character Ink.

My husband loves to do clever things all the time—pranks on the kids, jokes, etc. He also likes to do special things for the kids—and let them know that he was thinking of them. (Not just that Mom thought of a special thing and had him “sign on” for it!) I love this about him, and it makes our kids feel so well-parented by BOTH parents.

Last Christmas—with one wedding behind us by four months and another one coming in a month or so—Ray thought it would be fun to get the three married and one soon-to-be-married sons and sons-in-law mistletoe and chap stick for early Christmas presents. He was very adamant that he didn’t want to give it to them on our Christmas gathering because he wanted them to “use” them the whole month of December.

So…I indulged him and found a great deal on some beautiful fake mistletoe at Kohl’s, and he picked up the chap stick at Walmart, and we set out to bag them/wrap them (and mail them to two of the guys). He signed the card from himself and was quite pleased with his little “prank.”

The kids sent him pictures of them standing beneath it kissing, holding it over their lover’s head, hanging it in their doorway, etc. And it was a fun Christmas gift for all.

As an aside, one of the best ways that you can make your children-in-law feel like a part of your family is to include them right from the start in your Christmas traditions. When our first child was married, the new “Reish” got the same amount spent on her, the same attention, and the same Christmas gifts that everybody else. (According to one of my boys, the daughters-in-law get more than they do! LOL)

But not only gifts—even this little “prank gift,” or picking up their favorite white chocolate (daughter-in-law) or dark chocolate (son-in-law) or texting them specific plans (as opposed to just sending the info to your child) can go a long way in making them feel a part of your family’s Christmas celebrations.

Finding out what your children-in-law like is a great way to make them feel like a part of your Christmas festivities. Here are our two daughters-in-law with their special gifts from us–one collects penguins and the other snowmen!

P.S. Print off our free “Kids’ Faves” sheets and give to your children-in-law to fill out to find out what makes them tick!

The post Christmas With College and Adult Children: Mistletoe and Chap Stick appeared first on Character Ink.

I have talked at length about our Christmas Eve celebrations, games, food, and tradition. One newer tradition that we began a few years ago with all of our olders (who are now all olders!) is the Pass and “Steal” Grab Bags.

A lot of groups do this activity in which you bring a gift of a certain type or price range (all gift cards or white elephant or all food gifts or all ornaments or all games or all movies, etc.) then you draw numbers. The person with number one goes first and chooses a gift and opens it. The person with number two may choose another gift or “steal” the first person’s gift. When a person’s gift is stolen, he may steal someone else’s gift or choose an unwrapped one. The game continues like this until everybody has gone and there are no gifts remaining. There is usually some kind of rule to keep the game from going on forever, such as that a gift may only be “stolen” twice or three times (depending on the number of people playing) and then it is “dead,” meaning that the person who has it on the last steal keeps it (it may not be stolen again).

Several years ago we decided to do this with our kids on Christmas Eve with common things that a lot of them like or would like to have. They always have the option of stealing if they don’t particularly want what they opened. And in the end, they often trade anyway (“I’ll give you my Starbucks gift card for your McDonald’s”), so it all shakes out in the end.

This game has been especially fun as I have put in some special things—a stack of Christmas picture books that I collected from Goodwill and garage sales that we always read aloud when the kids were little or a complete set of some books that we had when the kids were growing up (all of the Josh Ladd chapter books), etc. These got stolen often, and it was fun to see how much these things meant to the kids.

Joshua, our oldest, about to “steal” a stack of Christmas picture books that we read aloud every year for Christmas!

For us, these grab bags are part of their “Christmas,” meaning we use some of the kids’ gift money for these presents, so they have some pretty cool things in them, such as books, videos, games, car charger, inverter, Bath and Body Works set (this is fun if a guy gets it and ends up giving it to one of his sisters!), and lots of gift cards to restaurants and favorite stores, as well as car wash cards and more.

Again, we do this on our Christmas Eve, before or after the sibling gift exchange and Plastic Wrap Prizes Ball (but after our stories and songs), and it adds a lot of excitement to our Christmas Eve as well as mystery as the kids try to guess what might be in a bag by its weight, etc. Just more family fun on Christmas Eve!

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