Baking Up Traditions

We have been doing our activity advent calendar since December 1^st.  I have to say that its been a big hit so far.  But today was definitely the best day yet.  Today we made Christmas cookies.  Its my great grandma’s recipe, and she told me that she used to make them when she was a little girl.  There’s something incredibly sweet in Hayden making the same cookies that his great-great grandma used to make.  I took a bunch of pictures and am going to take them to her when we head up to Michigan for the holidays.  (Yes, my wonderful Gram is still alive- 92 years young!)

We make Christmas cookies every year.  But this year was extra fun.  For the first time Hayden could actually cut out the cookies, shake the shaped dough into his palm and hand it to me to put on the cookie sheet.  He helped me cut all 4 ½ dozen cookies.  Then we took a break for lunch and rest time.

The break in the activity was great, after that though, he was ready to get back at it.  I frosted while Hayden decorated.  He did a great job and actually decorated them all!  I couldn’t believe it, I thought that he’d get bored and I’d end up doing most of the decorating.  Nope.  He had a blast and told his Daddy every detail about it.  He even remembered decorating cookies last year in our Memphis home.  That time he only decorated four cookies, this year…over four dozen!

Mason was great too.  He sat contentedly in his high chair squishing up banana (occasionally eating some too.)  When he started to fuss I just cleaned him up and set him on the floor and he happily played at our feet and crawled all over the living room.   The afternoon followed the same pattern.

It was so wonderful to see something that I did with my Mom, and that I’ve done every year since moving out of the house become a family tradition that my own sweet boys can be part of.

Rolled dough, baked cookies, frosting, and a sprinkling of colored sugar equals a joyful day to be cherished forever.

I even set the camera up and took some pictures of myself with the boys.
The lighting leaves a lot to be desired, but I still love all the moments...

Mason loved exploring while we baked.

The finished product.  Yummy!

Purposeful Moments

It only takes a moment to create memories that will last a lifetime.  The holidays always start me thinking about family, togetherness and traditions.  Its so easy to get caught up in the mayhem of the holidays, the buying gifts and forgetting that the whole point of a family dinner is the gathering itself.  Not the turkey on the table or the gifts under the tree.

I’ve been trying over the last few years to do things with Hayden (and now Mason) that will hopefully become lasting traditions throughout the year.  Some of those things are big things, such as Thanksgiving dinner.  Others are smaller, but still significant.

For the past two years, the day after Thanksgiving we go to a light festival of some sort to kick of the Christmas season.  The first year we went to the Memphis Zoo Lights.  Last year we went to the Shelby Farms Light Drive.  So this year I wanted to do the same, but being in a new place, plus the cost and distance made it hard to find an event that worked for us.  Eventually I found a wonderful neighborhood just 15 minutes up the road where 6-7 houses decorate elaborately and all the lights are timed to music.  It was small but beautiful.  It was so fun to see an everyday neighborhood transformed into a Christmas light show.  It really lifted our moods even higher and put us in the “Christmas Spirit” if you will.

But again, it made me think of all the things that create a sense of family.  The rest of the weekend was spent Christmas shopping and decorating.  It would have been easy to get busy and just want to get it done.  But instead, I let Hayden put ornaments on the tree anywhere he wanted… and I didn’t move them.  He helped Daddy put up lights outside while I fluffed trees inside and put up stockings.  We spent time saying, “Merry Christmas” over a cup of hot cocoa (even with it being 65 degrees out.)

Those tiny moments in between, the purposefulness of it all, creates traditions, connection and lasting memories that will tie us together for years to come.  They are what make us family.