New Traditions

As Oliver continues to be an inquisitive and insightful little man, we wanted to start creating new traditions this Christmas. We knew Saint Nicholas day was coming up, so we decided to turn a day of Pasta making at Oma's into overnight stay with an early arrival of St. Nick. The tradition says you put your shoes outside your door and he'll come to fill them up with goodies. Saint Nicholas kindly gave our "Elf on the shelf" a ride when he came to fill Opa's shoes (Oliver's choice to have bigger shoes so toys would fit).

I had contacted an Etsy artist for a family Elf. The Magical Elf can not be touched by a child's hand- or his Christmas magic will wear off. He comes to watch the little misters throughout the month of December and travels each night back to the North Pole to report to Santa if they've been naughty or nice. Every morning he'll move to a new part of the house for the boys to find. Our Elf will also be bringing one new winter/ holiday book a day to encourage even more excitement.

Christmas is a wonderful time of year. We fully intend to create memories and traditions that hopefully have long term sticking power. When the boys grow older, my wish is they'll know I tried to build on wishes, play up magic, and allow the wonder of the season to overwhelm them.

Saturday we drove to Oma's, went shopping for supplies and spent the next three hours making ravioli. Oma got a new Pasta attachment for her Kitchen Aid Mixer and it was super fun... like working with play dough toys for grownups. After the boys woke up from their nap, I bundled them up to play in the newly fallen snow. Lucius was happy to sit there, until he tried to crawl. The snow was too deep and he got a face full- not too happy to try to play any longer. Oliver had a BLAST, throwing snow at Oma and "eating the snowman". For dinner, we had a taste test of our pasta day hard work. The Chicken and spinach Ravioli was Phenomenal!  I highly recommend it. Then it was time to set out shoes and go to bed. In the morning, the boys patiently waited for Opa and Daddy to wake up so they could open their goodies from Saint Nicholas. What a fun couple of days and I'm hoping a new family tradition.

Do you have any fun childhood memories/ traditions leading up to Christmas?