11th Day of Christmas with Ruth Soukup {Living Well. Spending Less.}
From unrealistic expectations to traditions to your screaming schedule as well as those annual holiday encounters with the in-laws and outlaws, this free 5 Day challenge will allow your holidays to go from chaos to calm. Click HERE for the free 5 Day Challenge and they will automatically come to your inbox. Merry Christmas!
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IMPORTANT NOTE: Remember you may comment to win on all of the 12 Days of Christmas posts until Sunday night, December 15th at midnight EST so be sure to read through those you missed and catch up!
Welcome to the 11th Day of Christmas with my friend Ruth Soukup from Living Well. Spending Less.
Ruth is a writer, photographer, entrepreneur, wannabe DiYer, semi-frazzled mom to two beautiful girls,wife to her wonderful husband of eight years, and, above all, a child of a loving and gracious God. Her passion is her family, and creating a home filled with joy and purpose. She started writing Living Well Spending Less in July 2010 because her spending habits had become so out-of-control that her marriage was on the brink of collapse. She needed to find a way to hold herself accountable, and writing about the challenge of living well on a budget helped.
Now, meet Ruth!
Our Favorite Christmas Traditions
When my husband and I first got married we talked a lot about how we wanted to create special Christmas traditions for our children. He had grown up in a family with lots of traditions, while my own family seemed to do something new (though equally chaotic) each year. It was important to me to give our kids the stability my own childhood had lacked, and it was important to both of us to create memories that they would cherish for a lifetime, as well as to teach our kids that Christmas is about something more than presents.
Our first year together, my husband gave me a beautiful hand-blown glass ornament and said, “we should do this for our kids each year, so that by the time they are ready for a tree of their own they will have their own special collection to start with.” We have had so much fun each year picking out the ornaments that most represent an important milestone or passion from that year, and each year when we decorate our tree, the best part is opening the box of “special” ornaments and reminiscing over the years past.
We’ve added other special family traditions to our holiday lineup, including everything from a special Advent calendar filled with treats & treasures, collecting items to fill our Operation Christmas Child boxes, buying gifts for the local “angel” tree, eating Dutch Babies on Christmas morning, and ringing the Salvation Army bell outside the local Publix.
However, our very favorite tradition of all is delivering freshly baked & decorated cookies to the local fire station on Christmas Eve. We’ve done this since our youngest was just a baby, and every year we stop by on our way home from church to hand out cookies and tell the firemen thank you for working to keep us safe when the rest of us get to be home with our families.
It is a very simple gesture, one that requires so little time or effort on our part, and yet those firemen are always so kind and appreciative. In years past they have even treated us to a tour of the fire station and let the kids explore the engines and try on gear. Honestly, I think we get far more out of it then the firemen do!
There is a lot that we won’t do this year. We won’t go see the Nutcracker or any other holiday show that one of our children is not performing in, and we won’t give either of our kids a pile of the latest must-have toys. Our Elf on the Shelf won’t be the main character in a new elaborate scene each day—she’s happy enough just to remember to move to a new spot before the kids wake up—and I’m pretty sure our Christmas dinner will consist of frozen pizza and leftovers.
But that’s okay. We’ve realized that it is easier to say no to the things that don’t matter—or to give ourselves grace for serving pizza for Christmas dinner—because ultimately it is the traditions and the love that gets remembered far after the holidays have come and gone. Our simple family traditions remind us that the joy of Christmas comes not from the gifts we receive, but from the one precious Gift we have all been given.
For us that is the best Tradition of all.
TODAY’S GIVEAWAY:
Ruth is giving away a $50 Amazon gift card to one of you!!! To enter, simply leave us a comment with who you and your family or friends could bless at the holidays. One of my favorites was the year we gave the hard-working, mentally-challenge man at Target who rounds up all the shopping carts out in the snowy parking lot a twenty dollar bill on Christmas Eve. we told him it always inspires us what a hard worker and friendly person he is.
Now, your turn. Any ideas?
Definitely our new neighbors. We recently moved and they have been so welcoming and nice.
I would definitely love to bless soldiers overseas with sweet Christmas boxes!
Each year the resident counsel of my apartment building have a yard/bake sale during the year. At Christmas time we take the money we raised and buy school supplies and games for the porest school in our area. We take them to the school a week before Christmas and the kids are so excited to get the things we’ve bought. Last year was my first time doing this and it feels good to bless others.
we like to bake and share what we have baked. And we helped with a Christmas gift for a child in Guatemala.
We would help anyone that’s sick this holiday or anyone that is out of work, making sure they have food and gifts for Christmas. We are always taken care of by our heavenly Father, it’s the least we could do.
We bought an outfit and jacket for a little boy named Mateo from the Salvation Army Angel tree.
Helping our homeless, we have many here in my city
I would help a homeless veteran.
We liked to pick someone who is in need and surprise them anonymously. We own a retail business and see so many who fit this description.
I’ve been trying to be much more intentional. My daughter and I cooked a meal for a local women’s shelter. I’m going to try and do that on a monthly basis.
My friend Kelly wrote a book entitled Embracing the Spirit of Giving that encourages others to do this for 25 days straight. I don’t do well with extra giving at Christmastime. I feel like we should look to be giving every year. I don’t have someone in mind to do special giving for this year but there was a year that our friend was battling cancer and we blessed their family with an Advent book anonymously. It’s still fun to listen to her tell the story as she still has no clue who gave it to her!
My friend that will be having yet another cancer surgery as soon as Christmas is over. I am going to cook her a healthy meal and spend some fun “girlie time” with her watching Hallmark movies and praying with her.
I would like to bless our crossing guard.
Thank You!!!!
I help our local Crisis center all year but like to do extra stuff at Christmas. Merry Christmas to you all.
We will be blessing some people from our church.
Every Christmas season we make a point of bringing treats to the humane society in our town. We bring cookies and treats to the workers and volunteers and new towels and toys for the dogs and cats there. We also buy diapers to donate to the local community pregnancy center. I love the outreach they have to families. They have parenting classes that helps them earn mommy dollars so they can purchase things that they need. They deserve all the support we can give.
We gave donations through World Renew of 2 goats, 2 sheep, latrines and water purifying systems to 3rd world countries. We have SO much and they have so little.
My postman Michael. Every one in my neighborhood has been blessed by him. I am 66 years old and he is the kindest most thoughtful postman I have had in my life. I always remember him at Christmas. This is who I would bless
A missionary family.
Deborah
Pink Scissors Design on Etsy
pinkscissorsdesign @gmail .com
we do operation Christmas Child shoebxes. We pack the boxes for children that are the same age as our grandchildren.
I’m hoping my sister and I will be able to share a Christmas meal with our neighbors this year.
Friends who lost their homes in the recent Midwest tornadoes.
We plan to bless a family that we’ve known since our teen years. The husband of this family recently feel from a roof & now has brain damage. They are struggling financially so we plan to bless them with a monetary offering.
I would like to bless my niece and nephew , their parents separated two months ago their so much fighting over custody they will be spending Christmas vacation with me and family to get away from all the hate going around. My kids offered up their gifts to their cousin so they could have the best Christmas ever.