Living the Small Town Life: Christmas Season

Here are some very late pictures from Christmas festivities back in December for Brieleigh's third Christmas (third- really?). We had a fun time together creating more traditions and memories.

You probably will not see this in the picture version, but we really tried to put the focus on Jesus for Brieleigh and did not mention Santa Claus to her really at all. Everyone has a different way of approaching this, and that is totally fine. There is no one right way to teach your child the reason we celebrate Christmas every year. We just decided as parents that we wanted to focus and spend our efforts on Jesus's incarnation (God becoming a man and entering this world as a baby to save us out of our sins) from a tiny age rather than spending effort on trying to uphold the Santa Claus myth (though fun to do as well). We told Brieleigh about the real Saint Nicholas when she would ask about our ornaments with big white beards or see them in every store we passed. I am actually suprised she never mentioned "Santa Claus" by name especially since everyone who we ment on the street wanted to know what Santa Claus was bringing her for Christmas. I pray that her little heart was open to all the things we tried to teach her this season, and that we would not just focus on it for a season but every day all through life.

One cute story was when I put some of my Grandmother's Santa Claus/Saint Nick looking figurines that I inherited out. They were pretty high on a shelf, and Brieleigh noticed them since they were not usually there. "What are those, Mommy?... Baby Jesuses??" :)

Attempted photo shoot

Enthusiastically watching the Richardson Christmas Parade- a very strange little parade.

Kissing the goat at the Christmas tree farm

On a hayride to find our tree (which took us a good 2 hours- the drought was not too nice to the trees)

Helping Daddy cut down our perfect tree

Making sugar cookies to eat while we decorated the tree

Brieleigh was very into hanging ornaments this year. She always would ask, "Where does this one go?"

At the Richardson Christmas Village- they have a "village" of little houses you can go in and do a Christmas activity. Brieleigh talks about the "little houses" every time we pass the city hall.