We did our annual advent challenges, and we hid our little elf every day where occasionally there are small treats or gifts, but I noticed that days would go by where no one looked in the advent pocket OR for the elf, so that tradition may be fading out with age.
When the girls were younger the challenges were super simple. Here is one of our old lists:
Tell someone something you like about them
Wish someone a Merry Christmas
Do something nice for someone (but don’t let them know!)
Thank Heavenly Father for Jesus in your prayers
Read the nativity story
Draw a picture of the nativity
Tell someone you love them
Draw a picture or write a note to someone who is lonely
Visit someone who is sick
Sing a Christmas carol about Jesus
Play or talk to someone you normally don’t play or talk with
Make someone smile
Do something nice for mom without being asked
Draw a picture to say thank you for someone you appreciate
Spend some time playing with Kipper
Cheer someone up who is sad
The past few years we upped our game. I don't have this year's complete list, but here are some from previous years:
Learn the definition of the word peacemaker. Find a scripture that teaches about
peacemakers. Pray that you can develop
this quality. What is the Savior’s role?*
Listen to the First Presidency Devotional and share with your
family your favorite part.
Do something nice for someone (but don’t let them know)!
Learn more about the sacrament.
Read Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; and Luke 22:17-20. Establish a pattern of pondering during the
sacrament. Ask, “what can I do to
improve?” Listen for the Spirit. What is
the Savior’s role?*
Read the nativity story tonight by candlelight.
Visit someone who is sick or lonely. It can be someone your age, an older person,
or a call to a family member. Be
thoughtful.
Send a Christmas Card/Letter to Mormom. She is lonely and this will give her some
Christmas cheer.
Write a letter of gratitude to one of your teachers at church or
school.
Heavenly Father has given you special gifts. Read 1 Corinthians 12:4-12; 13; Moroni 7
12-13; 10:8-18; and Doctrine & Covenants 46:11-26. Ask a family member to write down positive
qualities the Lord has given you. List
these gifts in your journal, and write how you can continue to develop these
gifts and use them to serve your family and others. What is
the Savior’s role?*
Write a note to someone telling them something specific that you
admire or appreciate.
Write your testimony of the Savior in your journal.
Do something nice for mom without being asked.
Spend an hour doing Family History. Take some of the names you find to the temple
before Christmas.
Read about repentance in Isaiah 1:18; Alma 26:22; 34:30-35;
Moroni 8:25-26; and Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-20; 58:42-43. Discuss with the family what repentance
means. Apply the principles of
repentance in your life. What is the Savior’s role?*
Attend A Christmas Carol and then use Article of Faith 13 to
evalutate what you saw and heard. How
can you use this Article of Faith as a guide for all you do so the Holy Ghost
will be your constant companion? What is the Savior’s role?*
Conduct a self-assessment of your personal integrity. Ask yourself the following questions: Do I avoid gossip, inappropriate jokes,
swearing and profanity, and being light-minded about sacred subjects? Am I completely truthful, morally clean,
honest, dependable, and trustworthy in my schoolwork and other activities? Today pray for strength and for the guidance
of the Holy Ghost to help you live with integrity. What is
the Savior’s role?*
Read Doctrine & Covenants 18:10 and 121:45. Do all you can to build others and make them
feel of worth. From now until Christmas
notice the worthwhile qualities and attributes of others. Acknowledge them verbally or in writing. What is
the Savior’s role?*
While in McCall choose to only speak kind, uplifting words. Withhold any criticism or judgement.
Smile and wish a Merry Christmas to everyone you pass on the way
to TRAX today.
Send an email or text to Babsie.
Tell her about your life, and wish her a Merry Christmas.
Make grandma’s day by writing her an email telling her something
you love about her.
Read a story/article in the Friend, New Era or Ensign.
Talk to someone at school that you don’t normally talk to. See if you can find out three things about
them.
Give a specific prayer giving thanks for the birth of the Savior.
Learn about satisfying spiritual hunger (start with John 6:35)
Have a special lunch outing with mom/dad.
Point out a virtue in something that they don't see in themselves.
Eat lunch with someone new at school/work.
Secretly do something nice for someone in the family.
Learn about the problems in another country. Say a united prayer in their behalf.
Geoff took a trip to Mexico City for work, and I sent him and Tennie the challenges while he was gone.
We got ALL of our Christmas decorations out, which leaves no shelf or surface space empty! All of the Danish nisse and German nutcrackers, and European Christmas market treasures made the house feel super cozy and magical! On Christmas Eve we gave our annual Christmas ornament.
Our cat Mila really liked the ornaments.
Ceci's performance as Scrooge was fun, and we saw A Christmas Carol at Hale Theater too. I don't remember where this picture was taken, but it was in December!
We went to an amazing Christmas concert by The Lower Lights with our friends, the Serafins. Wow that was fun!
We attended a Kids For Kids fundraising concert put on by some of our friends where kids organize and perform and raise money for a cause. This particular concert was for a refugee center in Greece. They raised $10,000! We had plans for a sleigh ride in Midway, but it is hard to go on a sleigh ride with no snow! That fun outing will be postponed until a future date. But there was enough snow to open a few runs at Park City where Geoff and the girls have passes this year.
We also did a little ice-skating one weekend with a few of Tennie's college friends who also spent the weekend.
They also made lots of Christmas crafts.
We went and saw the lights on Temple Square twice.
Best of all was helping a family with Christmas and collecting and distributing coats to those that need them. These endeavors would have stressed me out if I hadn't had the luxury this year of getting most Christmas shopping and preparations done before Thanksgiving. It was nice to have the season to look outward.
I turned FORTY-EIGHT! To ease the pain, Geoff bought me a new phone! I'm so excited to have the nice camera! Now I just have to learn how to use it!
Christmas Eve we started a new tradition a woman at church mentioned - to emphasize the light of Christ. With all the lights off I lit a taper candle. I then lit the person next to me, she lit the person's next to her and so on. When all were lit we talked about how we can fill the world with light, Christ's light within us. We shared some scriptures and the girls ended up being obsessed with the melted wax. But they still felt the peace and truth of the point!
But the biggest and most time consuming and most exciting gifts for me to give were our old blog's Auburn years printed into three volumes (more on this in another post soon) and digitizing our old video camera's small cassette tapes, comprising the years 2000-2005. None of us had seen these videos since we took them! We opened these last on Christmas morning and it was a worthy staying-home-as-a-family-can-be-cool surprise! We spent all day Christmas day, and many days since, watching these movies and laughing and remembering, and on Geoff's and my part, longing a little bit. It seems like a lifetime ago, and yet time has slipped by so quickly.
Our Christmas break has been a little more busy than we anticipated, but still wonderful to be together. Geoff, Adele and Ceci got in a car accident (all are ok), which meant we had to buy a new car suddenly. That took some time and decision making. Ceci spent six days, post-Christmas with a nasty, nasty cold and missed precious open days skiing. The day she was back on her feet, Tennie and I woke up with it, and that is giving me a lot of time to lay around and read and watch movies and work on things like this post. (As a mom, sometimes being sick is the only time to be forced out of commission!) So Adele and Tennie had plans with friends on New Years, but Geoff and I stayed home and tried to be fun and exciting with sick Ceci. I don't think we succeeded...
It has been an eventful, challenging and exciting year. What rich memories! We're all looking forward to 2019. Life is full of surprises!
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