Christmas Party Friday

HAPPY FRIDAY - - and OH, it IS a Happy Friday!

This afternoon starts Christmas Break and a two week vacation!

This week's Party Theme is Creative Christmas or Christmas Traditions with Christy. I don't really think of myself as a creative person -- but yesterday, my braille lesson was a big hit! Oh the miracles of peanut M&Ms and hot glue:

It says:
Hi (child's name)

If you can read
this you can eat m&ms.
Do you like m&ms very
much? I like them.
Miss
SandenA closer look at Miss Sanden
Other than the Braille lesson, I'm out of Creative Topics and on to Christmas Traditions.
I always send Christmas Cards.
*SPOILER ALERT*
*If you expect to receive a Christmas Card from me, beware because a picture of this year's card is forthcoming...*I bought my Christmas cards this year from the MD Anderson Cancer Center... they have some really cute items and the profits go to a wonderful cause.I always glue a Christmas letter on the left and write a handwritten note of some sort on the right... Christmas cards take a LOT of my time in the weeks before Christmas, but its one of my traditions!

This is an interesting year for me to write about traditions because it is the first year, I will not be with my parents for Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning. I will be in St. Louis experiencing the Miller Family traditions for Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning.

The Sanden Christmas Eve involves French Onion Soup and a late night Christmas Eve Service... evidently the Miller Family Christmas Eve involves a BIG extended family get together and a Steal-Your-Neighbor's-Gift Exchange. Both traditions... both very different! :-D

Regardless of the next few weeks, one of my Christmas traditions sounds simple, but I'm learning I'm unique in my tradition: I ALWAYS get and decorate a fresh-cut Christmas tree. This sounds like such a given to me -- but each year I discover more and more of my twenty-something friends and acquaintances who are single/not married/do not own a home/go home to their parents' home for Christmas, do not put up and decorate their own trees.
I ALWAYS DO!
I LOVE ornaments and I have a big (and each year it keeps getting bigger) box of my own ornaments that I keep with me, wherever I'm living and I can decorate an entire 6-foot tree with memorable ornaments through the years.This little guy was a present from my best friend growing up, given to me in middle school. We always took her to Vail with us where we taught her to ski.This ornament was an extra ornament that my preschoolers made their parents last year.Plenty of harps adorn my tree because I played the harp very seriously for a number of years... it is my hope to someday play the harp more regularly again... it just hasn't happened in a while.

I love this Holy Family Lenox ornament my parents gave me last year -- Mary holding the baby Jesus with Joseph right beside her. It is hanging in the front of the my tree just under the star.

It is also a Christmas tradition of mine that when I wrap presents, the room becomes a MESS -- I think of it as Santa's workshop -- A VERY MESSY WORKSHOP! Lexie loves to play with the paper, ribbons and bows and I sing along to a favorite Christmas movie!

Some gifts are ready to go...What are your Christmas Traditions?