2nd Day of Christmas Giveaway with Whitney Capps
Welcome to our 5th annual 12 Days of Christmas giveaways!.
Each day I’ll feature one of my Proverbs 31 sisters offering a recipe, idea or memory and giving away a prize for the day!
Next up?
My fashionable friend and speaker extraordinaire:
“I love kicking off the Christmas season! Our family has a tradition of going to eat dinner at a nice restaurant to have a meal together.
Chad and I have four little boys 7 and under. My brother and his wife have three girls and one boy, 6 and under. My parents have celebrated the birth of a grandchild once a year since 2005.
So when I called to make our dinner reservation at Maggiano’s, I reserved a table for 14-six adults and eight children. As you can imagine a white napkin and real plates kind-of-dinner for our whole crew takes a lot of grace and a lot of patience.
We just enjoyed our annual tradition this past Friday night. Before dinner was complete I was exhausted. I had cut up four bowls of spaghetti, fed a wiggly infant, played several games of tic-tac-toe, snapped a few pictures, nearly spilled a drink and tricked my kiddo’s into trying calamari.
I ended up eating my appetizer with my entree. Both were cold by the time I got to enjoy them. As I took a bite and then passed out DS’s to the boys (a thing I swore I’d NEVER do at dinner), I looked around the table and realized I hadn’t had one conversation with my parents, my husband or my brother and sister-in-law. It was wild! And yet, simply wonderful.
I haven’t always enjoyed the chaos. I spent the first few years of motherhood waxing nostalgic about how nice it had been to go to an adults only dinner. Now, half a dozen years later, I have a sliver of the perspective Mom’s of high schoolers and college students have. It is true.
This thing called childhood goes by too quickly. I can’t believe I have a 7-year-old. I have a kid who rides the “Pink Pig” because it’s tradition not because it’s fun.
In seven more years, he’ll likely be bigger than me. All too soon, I’ll eat hot meals because no one will need me to cut up his spaghetti. They won’t wear matching sweaters or sit on Santa’s lap.
Our little holiday tradition might have been a three-ring circus but it was memorable. It was certainly improved by my choice to cherish the chaos. Maybe that should be the new holiday tradition for me. My youngest is 11 months old. Chaos is going to be my holiday companion for years to come.
Now this girl can handle a little chaos. I can bear it the month of December. A lot of chaos, though, and I can become unglued!
Sadly most of my chaos is self-induced. I’m resolving to make 2013 different. Wanna join me?
I’m giving away a Let.It.Go kit to one lucky winner. It includes a copy of the book, the six-week teaching dvd and companion Bible study workbook. Karen’s latest book is a tremendous gift for those of us who obsessively claw after control and peace. (Not to give away the ending, but Karen kind of helps us understand how the two are often mutually exclusive. Ugh!)
I promise you’ll love this resource. If you are the winner of this giveaway, Karen will give me your name and email address. I’ll contact the Proverbs 31 office and have them ship your kit to you!
Thanks for having me, Karen. You are as hospitable in cyberspace as you are in real life. (Oh, and for more fun pics from the night, hop on over to my blog.)
Merry Christmas, y’all!
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Okay–to be entered in today’s giveaway, tell us your favorite way to get together with family. Or, if time is tight, say “Pink Pig”!
Remember, you have until Sunday night December 16th to comment on all the posts. One grand prize winner will be chosen from among the gals who post on all 12 days! What the grand prize is will be announced sometime this week (when I figure it out!!!)
Pink Pig
Being with family and feeling like they want to be there.
Going to see Christmas lights, decorating the tree, hot chocolate and ice skating. We have a ton of fun. My dad still lets me put the angel on the top of the tree :-)
Love piling in the car and ride though a neighborhood looking at the lights and singing christmas songs.
Pink Pig
I mostly adore playing games with my family. My current favorite is “Telestrations”!
Pink pig!
Pink Pig! :)
Gingerbread
We used to play card games when I was younger when the family got together for the Holidays. Now we watch movies
One of my favorite pre-Christmas activities is to ride the Holly Trolley (a bus that looks like an old-fashioned style street car) with my grandchildren. There’s always at least one musician on board plus Santa Claus and everyone sings Christmas carols as the driver takes us on a tour of the most beautifully decorated homes in town. Last night, there was a fabulous singer/guitarist, and I didn’t want the ride to end! The inside of the bus is tastefully decorated with Christmas lights, and the exterior of the vehicle has a huge fresh evergreen wreath and lots of roping and lights. It’s very festive and memorable.
My favorite family time and getting together, is playing old fashioned board games. My kids are now teen’s but I can still get them to play a game. Our favorite lately has been apples to apples or scattegories cattagories. Game time with the family is just a great time to here laughter and get together to talk. So game nights is always my favorite family get together time :)
On Christmas Eve we go to my friend’s house and Santa visits. One year my daughter saw that Santa had no boots on. Santa asid it is too hot to wear boots in Florida, I left them in my sled. Now that they are 12 and 14, they still want to go and see Santa at my friend’s house. It has been a few years since my immediate family has gotten together for Christmas. There are 3 of us and usually my brother from California is missing. Thiis will probably be my mom’s last Christmas in her home, as she needs more skilled nursing care. So it will be a little sad.
Favorite way to get together with family? Holiday celebrations at one of my sister-in-law’s homes. Everyone brings a casserole or dessert, a buffet is laid out and lots of relaxed time to visit. Four generations in one place. Wonderful.
We go to Christmas Candlelight service and then drive around and look at Christmas lights.
We have always shared Christmas Eve with family over a beautiful dinner,then as we gather up the food the kids are asking “can we open gifts now”, which of course is always a treat. “Merry Christmas” to all!!
Over food!
Christmas Eve with the family, and Santa (oldest brother) gives the kiddos their gifts.
My favorite way to get together with family is when we make cut-out shape cookies. There are some cookie cutters that we have used for about 30 years that always have to find there way on the tray! We decorate with a variety of sprinkles and it is fun to see how creative the kids get!
Pinky Pig!!
My family tends to get together for ice skating in December and sledding in January. My 2 favorite family get togethers in the winter!
We always get together with my family (parents, sibs and their kids) on Christmas Eve. Early dinner then gift exchange. Then we see my husbands family on Christmas Day or shortly after. Christmas is not Christmas unless my kids see all their cousins.
christmas eve giving the kids there new set of pj’s so they are wearing them christmas morning and maybe starting to get together with fam and eating specail foods that we only do on chritmas eve singing and reading the Bible and maybe going to a Chritsmas eve service
Latkes And Applesauce during the 8 day of Hanukkah, and going to the school across the road the week before school get out and getting a stack of the kids favorite Christmas stories.
We aren’t Jewish by blood, but as Christians we are adopted into the vine. We had a traditional Jewish wedding and we have celebrated at least one night of Hanukkah since before any of the kids were teens. Now my oldest is 21 and my youngest is 16, but they still love the tradition.
This year one of our girls has a boyfriend who is studying Hebrew at the local Bible College, it will be fun to get his take on our tradition.
Pink Pig :)