With the new position at work, my personal writing, family, and ministry projects it has been nearly impossible to find blogging time but I wanted to touch base and also ramble a bit about the Holidays.
Thanksgiving was wonderful!! We spent most of the day at our church serving a Thanksgiving meal to the community. Nearly 200 people came and were fed a warm meal that day. We also had a mini pantry so that they can take groceries home, live music, crayons and coloring sheets for the kids.. it was so much fun to be a part of. Here are some pics from that event:
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| All ready to get started. Green Beans!! |
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| Awesome team of servers. |
After church, we went to my mom's for dinner and some family time. My aunt is visiting from Arizona so it was nice to spend a Thanksgiving with her after so many years. I can truly say that I am thankful for so much and it was amazing to be able to give back on this day. It really made me start to think about my little family and the traditions we are starting with Aiden. He is 19 months old now - such a big boy!
I want to make sure that we teach him to give back and perhaps make it a Thanksgiving tradition to volunteer or help out in some way. I think it is an important thing to teach him so I look forward to serving with my husband and our son in the future.
And speaking of traditions... what are your holiday traditions? I have so many that I grew up with and ever since creating a family of my own, we have been working on incorporating our old traditions but also coming up with some brand new ones! The beauty of family traditions are that you can enjoy them as a family. One thing I don't want are for my traditions to become a routine or even worse.. an obligation. What we do, should always be out of LOVE and not a sense of feeling obligated to attend a function or guilted into it for that matter. I would hate for Aiden to grow up and feel like he "has no choice" but to come home for the Holidays. I want him to have fond memories of the Holidays and his traditions as a child... it's time to make memories!!
For Christmas Eve, we will be letting Aiden open up gifts from extended family and friends. Eventually, this will happen at midnight but while he is still a baby, he can open gifts before bed. We'll have dinner and some fun and maybe we'll even leave cookies and milk out for Santa :)
On Christmas morning, we will have a family breakfast and open up gifts together under the tree. Aiden can get his gifts from "Santa" (mama and dada) and we can spend the day in our PJ's, just us.
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| Our Tree- Christmas 2012 :) |
I'd like to eventually start some Holiday activities together... maybe an art project or a favorite recipe we create together. Who knows... but for now, I think our traditions are starting to shape up. I am so very grateful for my little family and the opportunity to celebrate and be together during these special times. I just LOVE the holidays!!
Catch ya later,
~A