What's a normal family mean?: Christmas traditions and activities 2015

I'm gonna break my Christmas posts into 2 different posts. Here's part 1.......

I didn't feel well during the Holiday season. I had a few things going on, but I pushed through it. I wasn't the happiest and probably didn't make Christmas as special as I usually do. I did the best I could though with my circumstance.

As promised, we decorated for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. I let the kids have at it until they were bored and then I rearranged it.

The boy's tree in their room.

Amelia's masterpiece. Can you see the green boot ornament on her tree?? It's her favorite. Ha ha

My tree starts out beautiful and by the time Christmas is over it looks horrible.

My favorite tree was this little tiny one in the kitchen with their handmade ornaments. I need a bigger tree next year for these.

My theme is Gingerbread men. I have too much invested to change it now.

Gene and Ginger. I had them longer than I had my own kids.

My parents and sister Melissa came in on a Friday night to go to Christmas on Main. I haven't been taking lots of pictures like I normally do.

Here's one of my Dad eating his favorite kind of popcorn. Everything else was dark or too blurry.

We went out to eat at Frisches afterwards for ice cream sundaes and hot chocolate.

The next day we did a bit of shopping with the family. We even ran into Santa Clause.

That will teach them not to complain about never getting their picture taken with Santa.

"HEY, SANTA!"

Let's see.....

The kids also made their annual Gingerbread man cookie. Except this year it was a brownie.

And every year it looks more and more like an alien.

The elves finally made their appearance. I felt like they had been coming too early every year before. This year I held them off as long as possible. Amelia started crying every morning because she didn't think they were ever going to show up.

I told the kids for every sock I found laying around, it was minus one Christmas present. So of course the elves would throw socks all over the floor their first night back.

The elves were kinda lame this year and Amelia told me they wasn't that funny. So I had to step things up a bit.

Here's a few collages of what the elves did.

I'll be glad when they out grow the elf thing because it's not fun anymore.

Some other traditions, new and old, we participated in as as well.

We went to a Walk Through Bethlehem in Corbin. The weather was so warm I had a Christmas shirt on and flip flops.

Short sleeves and no jackets. It was pretty nice.

Another tradition was gingerbread houses at school.

Even though Amelia is in Kindergarten she has made a gingerbread house every year when the boys have made theirs.

I allowed her to get blue frosting without really thinking about it.

They all had a good time partying in their

Classes and exchanging gifts with their friends.

A few traditions from church was we had a Christmas Worship service. The Millikan and Harris family came and sang Christmas carols and played horns. It was really nice.

We also attended the Widow's banquet which I loved. I loved having a special dinner set aside and celebrating widows and making them feeling special.

We also went Christmas caroling to the nursing home and to the elderly and shut-ins.

Afterwards, we went to our last house and they had hot chocolate and treats waiting for us. It was a lot of fun.

We also had Christmas programs at church for the children.

Amelia sang "Away in a Manger" with her little friends.

Josiah done an awesome job on his solo and Titus did good on his speaking part. Even though he said it super fast to get it over with. I'll include their YouTube links in case you want to watch clips of their parts.

http://youtu.be/h5m_V-P2noY

http://youtu.be/UublRWvZqhc

http://youtu.be/zG9IK04WckE

Rebecca Gilpin and I are the teachers for Pre-school children's church. We came up with the Little Drummer Boy program. They decorated their own drums at home and they had a lot of fun.