Christmas Spirit

I think this year was our best for bringing "real" Christmas spirit into our home.  First of all our little friend Chippy the elf showed up.  He was super silly hiding in really random places that made everybody laugh.  This year he brought a special letter that asked the kids to donate some of their toys and clothes to his friend Jingle's family because they didn't have much and Chippy told them how kind our family was.  

Within an hour the kids had 3 boxes overflowing from their bedroom of all kinds of things they were willing to part with to help another family.  Chippy took the toys to the North Pole so Santa could give them an EXTRA big delivery this year.  Alissa was particularly generous, it made my heart swell with gratitude for the lesson these kids learned.   It's just "STUFF" and the lesson is far more important.

I didn't get a picture of it but we also printed off pictures of little gifts and each time somebody did something kind they wrote it on the present and taped it up on our garage door under the magnet of baby Jesus and it was the gifts we were giving him.  On Christmas morning after the Santa surprises and before any gifts were actually opened we read through all the gifts we gave to our Savior for his birthday.  I seriously felt so pleased with our gift and felt as though the Savior was pleased as well.  It's certainly a tradition we will be keeping.

We mailed one military package and 2 missionary packages as well as wrote a note to 4 missionaries from our ward.  It felt good to do this as I know they were appreciated.   It was good for my kids to see this service too.

All the Christmas shopping was done and all gifts were wrapped well before Christmas day so we were able to spend time together doing some fun things.  Took the kids swimming since they had earned $3 doing some chores around the house.  Molly actually didn't have any money left because she spent it on gifts for her siblings and didn't want to do any more chores.  Ella felt like doing something kind and decided the gift to her sister would be to pay for her swimming.  Made me proud of her.

Ella and I practiced a duet "Silent Night"  about a million times so we could perform it for Christmas Eve.  It was so much fun for me to spend that time together with her on the piano bench.  Even though she got sick of me, I didn't get sick of her. ;)  I am sure I was way more nervous to perform it on Christmas Eve for the Braithwaites than she was.  So grateful for the soothing effect of music and the meaning of the words in "Silent Night".