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!

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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!

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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.

One of the ways that we make our Christmas Eve super special is through special gifts and games (besides the traditions from long ago of singing carols, reading Christmas stories, and having the sibling gift exchange). Our Christmas Eve is a full evening of food, fun, fellowship, worship, reflecting, reminiscing, and play!

In the past few years as our family has grown, we could no longer fit around the table for Uno, Kemps, or Pit, so Ray did some research on group games and discovered something called “Minute to Win It” (we have been without television for years…and only in the past few with Netflix and Hulu do we know what’s out there! LOL). Anyway, he found things online, our daughter found some things for him on Pinterest, and he was off with new Christmas Eve traditions—Minute to Win It games.

For these games, we break up into teams and do relay style or “cooperative” types of games—completing puzzles, putting playing cards in a certain order, rubberband relay races, ping pong ball tosses, etc. It is crazy fun, and everybody has a great time with them.

Here are some pictures along with some descriptions of some of our favorite Christmas Eve games!

Teams of three assembling puzzles right side up then upside down!

Teams of three making a structure out of cups and plates.

Teams of three picking up M and M’s with chop sticks!

Flipping ping pong balls to the other side of the table with rubber bands.

More Minute to Win It games!

Late night card games when the group dwindles as people go to bed!

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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!

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One of the things that I love about our adult children having such close relationships is when they ask for group gifts (still!).

It is not uncommon for them to ask for things like these:

1. Restaurant gift cards to a place that they all want to go to together but that the college kids couldn’t afford without a gift card.

2. A video series that they will pass around/share with one another

3. A football that is kept at Mom and Dad’s for them all to use when they are all here together

4. Movie theater tickets for them all to go see a movie together

5. A game that they only play all together that is too expensive for one person to buy

Group gifts are just another way to keep kids close to each other–and even bring them back home together at times! 🙂

My Axis and Allies kids with their new 1914 edition…once a homeschooler, always a homeschooler!

The post Christmas With College and Adult Kids: Group Gifts appeared first on Character Ink.

Christmas with college and adult kids can easily turn into a fiasco if family members are not careful to put other people first. Selflessness is the key to family harmony at all ages—but especially with college and adult kids simply because when someone has a bad attitude or is selfish, parents really have no recourse with grown kids. (It’s not like you’re going to send a twenty-four year old to his room!)

My advice for this is not going to be the most helpful for families with grown kids THIS Christmas. But families with younger children really need to grasp the idea that whatever is happening in your home among siblings now is likely not going to magically go away when they are adults.

Of course, little spats and disagreements do not linger, but, quite frankly, selfish children become selfish adults. Kids who do not learn how to defer to siblings, parents, grandparents, and others will not just miraculously defer to those people when they are grown. So my advice to have family unity in Christmas futures: focus on character training—selflessness, deference, and more—while your children are young. Initiate traditions that teach kids to give to others. Don’t let your kids be mean to each other!

Stories and Songs on Christmas Eve

So for those with kids coming home from college or grown kids coming over for Christmas, here are some suggestions for building family unity at Christmas time:

1) Continue with past traditions that bind your family together—that special Christmas Eve story, the special cornbread stuffing, the Oreo dessert in the “blue bowl.” While some of these things might seem small, they make our families unique and give even our grown kids a sense of belonging. (See Continue Earlier Traditions and Other Traditions With All or Part of the Family.)

2) Consider having a sibling gift exchange—Once our second child got married, it was starting to get expensive for the kids to buy for every sibling and sibling-in-law, so the kids decided to draw names and just get one “medium” sized gift for the person each one drew. I thought this would detract from our family closeness, but just the opposite has happened: they sneak, surprise, trick, etc., to try to keep the person from knowing they have that sibling (or sibling-in-law). They go to great lengths to get something that is special to that person. This has made our Christmas Eve even richer.

The Family voting on the number of presents that Mom lost or will give to the wrong person this Christmas!

3) Consider getting group gifts—gift cards for the kids to do something all together after Christmas, a shared gift that can be passed from house to house, etc. (See Group Gifts post.)

4) Make kids’ favorite foods—Everybody in our family knows that Jonathan adores snickerdoodles, Kara loves Rice Krispie treats, and Lisa (our daughter-in-law) despises bananas. Find out everybody’s favorites and buy or have these. (See our free Kids’ Faves worksheet to find out what makes your kids tick!)

5) Reminisce—Our family loves to talk about Christmases past—“Remember when Mom shocked everybody by getting Josiah his first drum set?” or “Remember when Mom threw the cinnamon sticks across the room when we were making that cinnamon stick ornament?” or “Remember when Mom and Dad took us to that Christmas opera on accident and we sang everything we said the entire way home?” The kids love to talk about how many Christmas gifts I lose, give to the wrong person, etc. (See their voting picture below!) Sharing memories increases family unity!

Our High School and College Kids!

6) Do some things that you have always done—while we don’t read a half dozen Christmas stories or sing a dozen carols on Christmas Eve—we still do at least one of our favorite old stories (check out several of the stories that I will be sharing throughout the month—they are online for free!) and a couple of songs. It is hard to keep a lot of people’s attention (and not all kids-in-law are used to a two hour story and song Christmas Eve!), but even a portion of what we used to do binds our hearts together.

7) Play group games—Group games can definitely be challenging with fourteen adults, but we work hard at making sure our Christmas times with our grown kids are very special—even if it means working ahead of time to get games and activities ready for a fun-filled time together. (See Christmas Eve Games for some ideas.)

8) Make new kids (kids-in-love!) feel like a part of your family. Talk to the personally about the upcoming gatherings (as opposed to just talking to your own son or daughter). Find out what they love—and bless them with it. (See Mistletoe and Chap Stick post.)

The post Christmas With College and Adult Kids: Family Unity at 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!

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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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This fall we took a family vacation to Florida (all fourteen of us!), so we decided beforehand that due to finances and time to shop (we returned a few days before Thanksgiving), we would give our kids gift cards for Christmas rather than presents (except for our Christmas Eve Plastic Wrap Prize Ball and Grab Bags). As it turns out, my dad was very sick and in the hospital for two weeks, and I was completely tied up between him and working/writing/teaching that I didn’t have a chance to do any Christmas shopping until mid-December, so we were glad we had made that decision early on. (If you’ve read about our plastic wrap prizes and grab bags, you will know that those require some shopping and planning too!)

A question was posed on a Facebook group recently about how to present gifts of cash or gift cards. Many ideas were shared, plus we have many of our own, so I thought I would share some of these in this post, along with a few other tips.

First of all, I use something similar to our Kids’ Fave pages to find out what things my kids would like the most. Additionally, if I am going to be giving them a larger gift card (I often do for a birthday), I ask them specifically what they would shop for if they had a card. For example, one daughter-in-law is going to be buying some new clothes for student teaching, so she wanted Kohls’ gift cards; another daughter wants to get new running shoes; a son is building up his tool supply, so he wanted Sears. I have always thought it was important to see what the kids want, or in the case of most young adults, need at that time.

Now for the ideas of presentation. Here are some for cash and/or gift cards:

1) Here is the one I am doing with their gift cards this year: I’m taping (or non permanent sticky note type of tape) each of my kids’ gift cards to their favorite of something. Like my daughter-in-law collects snow men picture books, so I’m taping one of hers to the front of that. My son-in-law loves truffles, so I’m taping his to the front of a box of truffles. Another kid loves dark chocolate covered pretzels, so I’m taping his onto there. Another one loves jokes, so I’m taping his to the front of an inexpensive joke book. Another loves penguins, so I’m taping hers to the front of a penguin soap dispenser. Another loves Dentine gum, so I’m taping hers to the front of a case of her gum. This lets you give them money or a gift card but lets them know that you know something about what they like or enjoy.

2) Gift card tree—the first year we had a child-in-law, I got several $10 gift cards to places that her mom told me she liked and hung them like ornaments on a mini Christmas tree

3) Quarter rolls or dime rolls

4) Punch box in which the person has to punch the holes to get the money out of each one

5) Tape dollar bills end to end and roll them up in a tissue box

6) Paper airplanes made out of money

7) Pinata with money or gift cards taped to candy

8) Kits called “stick it right on the money” to dress up cash

9) Wrap candy bars with dollar bills

10) Place cash in a helium balloon

11) Put card of cash in a small box then put that in a bigger box and wrap it then that in a bigger box and wrap it, etc.

12) Fold them up small and place them in chocolates that you make—as the filling for the chocolates

13) Have a treasure hunt in which they search for their dollar bills or gift cards (or put in colored eggs, like an Easter egg hunt with each person’s in a different color egg or box)

14) Frame a collage of bills with a sign in the middle that says “break in case of emergency”

15) Hide a very small folded bill in a bag of Skittles or M and M’s

16) Buy a book and use Post-It Notes tape to tape bills throughout the book with a note that they can’t spend that bill until they get to that page in the book

17) Put money folded small in a pop bottle with other treats and surprises

18) Make homemade “crackers” that open when you snap them and instead of putting gifts inside, put cash (you can also buy these pre-made)

19) Roll bills up and put them in balloons before you blow them up. Fill a big box with the balloons and when they open the box, they have to pop the balloons to get the cash.

20) Ornaments that open and you can tuck cash or cards into

21) Tuck a gift card into a pair of socks, gloves, or slippers

22) Get clear balloons and fill with confetti and money

23) Make a dollar bill necklace by creating a chain (similar to the chains you make with paper to decorate a Christmas tree)

24) Get an empty candy box and place gift cards, dollar coins, folded up dollar bills, etc., into each empty slot that did have candy in it

25) Create a clear plastic sleeve for gift cards or bills, punch holes in the corners of them, and join them together with a metal ring—you could also add a key chain that represents that person and/or a page in the front of the whole gift with a card or note for the person to make it more personable

26) Roll up bills tightly (one at a time) and tie ribbon around each one that represents something about that person (dog ribbon or ribbon with books, etc.); place in a canning jar; decorate the lid with that same theme (i.e. a tiny stuffed dog on top or a little tiny book, etc.)

27) Make a tower of boxes of decreasing sizes and wrap each box, tape together, and put a ribbon over all the tower (like the fancy food towers that wholesale clubs carry at Christmas time). You can adjust it according to the amounts of each box/money or gift card. For example, the smallest could have a $5 gift card to someplace; the next a $10; the next a $15; and so on until the final one has a larger one. OR the smallest box could have a fifty cent piece; the next one a one dollar bill; the next one a five, etc. (Be sure they start with opening the smallest one!)

28) Fill an empty pizza box with some “dough”—including a sign inside that says that

29) Give a flower bouquet and wrap a bill around each stem

30) Get a thin, inexpensive photo book (at Dollar Tree) and fill each sleeve with a bill or card

31) Make a flower bouquet out of bills

32) Make a dart board with balloons that have cash in them; let the kids throw darts at them and get the cash inside

33) Put them in grab bags that people get according to the number they draw (or play our Pass and “Steal” Grab Bag game with group at Christmas time!)

34) Put gift cards of various amounts and to various places in layers of a ball made of plastic wrap. As they unroll the plastic wrap layers, they get the cards or bills. (Or for a group, here is how you do the Plastic Wrap Prize Ball.)

35) Get an inexpensive Monopoly game and replace the play money with real bills

36) Bake a batch of “fortune cookies” with bills inside each one

37) A balloon bouquet with cash in each balloon

38) A little business card holder with a different gift card or bill in each sleeve.  If you’re crafty, you could make a cute one like one of these!

39) Put a bill in separate little cards with rhymes for each one, such as

Here you’ll find a bill of one
Maybe some candy or chewing gum?

Here’s a bigger one; it won’t go far
Buy a Big Mac or wash your car.

Now you’re in business—a bill of ten
You can go to the movies but can’t take a friend.

Oooh…better yet, a twenty will make you smile
Dinner and a drink will l keep you busy for a while.

Fifty dollars—wowsie…that’s some serious dough
Spend it on something you love or someplace you want to go.

40) Empty favorite tea bag wrappers and replace with folded bills

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One thing that draws high school and college kids like nothing else is food. Seriously. Food. Especially boys.

As I’ve already mentioned, preparing and/or buying kids’ favorite foods and treats is a great way to their hearts. Smile (See Kids’ Faves worksheets available here for free!)

And, as I’ve already mentioned in our “Continue With Earlier Traditions,” we always invite all of the kids over for our decorating night Thanksgiving weekend.

Here are some tips from our decorating night:

Our Tree With All of Our Homemade Ornaments

1) Our family decorating night on Thanksgiving weekend IS our Thanksgiving get together. We have found that having too many get togethers that kids are expected to attend within that four day holiday weekend is just too much. Again, we don’t want to detract from anything they are doing in their own families, plus they have extended family get togethers and, if they are married, in-law get togethers. So in place of a Thanksgiving dinner, we have our Christmas decorating night.

Snowman globe ornament

Scrabble pieces and miniature book cover ornaments

2) We have shrimp. Yes, shrimp. We have shrimp three times a year in our home: Christmas decorating night (shrimp cocktail), “White Christmas” night (shrimp alfredo), and Christmas Eve (shrimp cocktail, oven fried shrimp, and shrimp scampi). It is a big deal. It is shrimp! Not casserole. Not half ground turkey and half hamburger. Not shredded chicken. Real shrimp!

Scrabble pieces ornaments

3) We read a story or two, sing a few carols, draw sibling names for exchanges, eat appetizers, drink IBC root beer (twice a year!), and decorate. (See Family Unity.) It isn’t too elaborate, doesn’t take too much preparation, and isn’t overly long (in time).

Joshua setting Out Nativity Sets

I love it that our kids-in-law bring their gifts and uniqueness to our family. Our daughter-in-law Lisa is an artist and always adds a special touch to our decorating.

4) Our decorating is very simple—sixty to ninety minutes with all of us. We put up a simple tree with homemade ornaments and set out dozens of various sizes of nativity sets. We might hang a wreath or two. I don’t have expectations that they are going to spend several hours decorating my house. The fourteen of us can usually do the actual decorating part in an hour or so. That keeps everybody interested and makes the evening more enjoyable.

Our new kids-in-law taking part in our family’s Christmas activities

5) I use paper plates—I don’t want everybody to have to work all night cleaning up at the end of the evening, so I often put the appetizers (store bought) in the oven in foil pans and serve it all on paper plates.

Our Christmas story for decorating night…we love this family favorite!

6) They are always invited to stay later to play games or watch a Christmas movie—but again, that is an invitation not an obligation.

Decorating night singing and stories!

Just a few simple tips. But those tips make our night special.

I am not a photographer by any means, but I have some pictures of our decorating night—complete with all of the homemade ornaments that the kids and I made each year during our “Christmas unit studies.” Those ornaments bring all of us great joy—and are a huge part of our “reminiscing” and “memory sharing” each year.

After decorating the tree 🙂

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