Christmas is coming!

I thought it would be fun if every so often Ben and I pick a topic together and write about it. It took some convincing, but Ben is on board! Ben picked our subject matter: favorite Christmas memories!

I LOVE Christmas. Every year in elementary school my teacher assigned some version of the topic, "What are your family's holiday traditions?" I never knew what to write. It wasn't that we didn't have Christmas traditions! I grew up in a community that celebrated Christmas without much religion. Everyone else wrote, "We wake up at 4am and rip open all of the presents," or "We make lists of presents for Santa." We didn't make lists of presents for Santa because my parents taught us that we should appreciate the thought that went into what we were given and focus instead on thinking of gifts for others. My parents reminded us that the reason we give each other gifts is to honor Christ and His gift to us. We read the Christmas story from the Bible every Christmas Eve and sang Christmas hymns. As a child I was confused by my friends' version of Christmas, and I have grown up to appreciate the way I was taught.

One year when I was 5 or 6 I wanted a bath time Cabbage Patch doll. One day we were shopping and I realized my mom had put the doll in our shopping cart, along with other toys. I was sure the gifts were for Christmas and I was suprised my mom was buying them in front of Stephie and I. Later that night my mom wrapped an enormous box of Christmas gifts, including the doll, right in front of us. I started to guess the gifts were not for me. My parents explained that someone they knew would not have a Christmas and asked if we would be willing to share our gifts with the family. We gathered the presents and boxes of food and quietly snuck to the doorstep, rang the doorbell, and ran to the car. It was great!!!

The first Christmas Ben and I were married I put up a really small Christmas tree decorated with just a few ornaments I bought at Target and a "tree skirt" that was really an old ballet wrap. I played Christmas music non stop and I found a job for the holidays to earn extra money to buy presents. During the month of December I rear ended a car in a parking lot and we ended up having to pay $600 to fix the other car just a week or so before Christmas. Almost all of the money I earned at my holiday job went to the repair. I thought that our Christmas was ruined. Ben isn't a huge fan of shopping, but when it came time to go and buy gifts for our family and friends, we had so much fun. We came up with ideas together and walked through the mall holding hands all lovey dovey and it was great! On Christmas Eve we went to Wal-Mart to buy gifts for each other. We didn't really have much money left, so we each took $20 to go and buy each other little presents. One of those little stocking stuffers was my all time favorite gift from Ben: a bottle of real vanilla. At the time Ben and I disagreed about the value of real vanilla versus imitation vanilla and we always bought the fake stuff. We opened our presents on Christmas and when I saw my bottle of real vanilla extract I thought it was the most romantic gift Ben ever gave me!

My most recent favorite Christmas memory is our first Christmas at Alpine. Nathan was just a few months old and since all of our girls would be gone at Christmas we decided to have a "Fake Christmas" before everyone went home for the holidays. All of the girls opened their own present and a few gifts for the house, and Nate received a new tummy time mat. Ben made ham and funeral potatoes, one of my favorite meals, and we just relaxed. I can't really describe what was so great about it, but I loved that day. We tried to recreate it the next year, but it just wasn't the same.

I know this is really long, but blame Ben because he picked the topic and he knows I can't stop! I can't wait to see our kids open presents now that they are a little older and care a little more this year (I hope)!