Since this is Charley's first Christmas, I wanted to start some new family traditions. If you ask anyone in my family, I am all about traditions! One of my favorite things to do when my parents get their tree up is to look at the ornaments we made as kids; especially the ones with our pictures on them. I love to see how cute we once were. So I started a new tradition this year since I now have a cute little one. I made Charley her first ornament on shutterfly.com and made a family ornament. I want to make one each year so that our tree will be covered with my cute kiddos when I'm an empty nester. I think they turned out pretty cute.
Another tradition I have been wanting to start is a gingerbread house decorating party. Last year I bought all of the supplies, sent out the invites to my family and took off 5 days from work to bake all of the gingerbread. Well, I ended up spending those 5 days in bed with the flu, Merry Christmas to me!
So I wanted to try it again this year. But we couldn't have everyone over since Charley is quarantined, so I decided to do a trial run. And boy am I glad I did!
I joke with my husband that I am like Clark W. Griswald when it comes to holidays and vacations. I have these great visions in my head of how I want everything to go and of course they never do. Then I end up being disappointed and depressed. Well...the great gingerbread house of 2014 was no disappointment.
It started out well. I had done a lot of research on pinterest and thought the hardest part would be baking the gingerbread but that was actually pretty easy.
Assembling the house went well...we didn't have any destruction. I had Christmas music playing in the background and hot cocoa and cider to sip to get us in the Christmas mood.
So on to the fun part, right? Not so much. I think my downfall was all of the research I did. I had this cute house in my head; nothing too fancy...but it definitely wouldn't look like a preschooler decorated it. I mean, come on...how hard can that be? Apparently pretty dang hard. We had been at this thing for 3 hours and the house was looking pretty pathetic. Kevin had lost interest, the baby was crying and I had to figure out something for dinner. The joyous Christmas music playing in the background was now just obnoxious noise. I was tired and hungry and this was no longer fun. Plus I had made a huge mess in the kitchen that I now had to clean up. Who came up with this dumb idea anyway? LOL
I was ready to just chuck the whole thing but my calming, wise husband told me to just leave everything for now and we would pick it up again tomorrow. He's so good dealing with my "crazy" and knows how to calm me down. I did just what he said and the next day we sat down together and finished our house.
All in all it turned out okay (just don't look close!) My favorite feature is the smoke from the chimney. I found white cotton candy at Walmart and it worked perfectly.
I'm not sure I could handle doing a decorating party. For one, my house is way too small. And secondly, it was a lot of work prepping for one house. I'm not sure how I would do 8 eight! But you never know...I could completely forget about this experience and get caught up in the "idea of fun" next year and give it a whirl. Just like Clark Griswald...he doesn't learn from his experiences either ;-)
To end on a cheery note...another tradition I started this year was Christmas cards. I've always loved getting Christmas cards from friends and family and have always wanted to send out my own and since now we have Charley, what better time to start, right? Unfortunately I couldn't send out as many as I had hoped so I apologize if you didn't get one. Hopefully next year I can send out more.
So instead, here is an e-card from us:
We hope that your Christmas is filled with love, laughter and happiness. Merry Christmas!
LOVE,
the Gardners
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Beautiful Stacey! (your decorations, your gingerbread house, your family)
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