Traditions

I know I should write something deep and meaningful about the true meaning of Christmas, and don't get me wrong, I am super grateful that the Son of God came down to earth as a helpless babe... but I have to confess that right now I'm also VERY excited about developing our own traditions for this special season.
As a child this season was magical, especially if we were blessed with snow, even though that was more often only a wish or a dream, but there were a couple of white Christmases. It was about family, the joy of celebrating and the feeling of home. As a teenager the magic got lost a bit... singing Christmas song with mum and dad just didn't seem so attractive, even though presents still were. When I made the choice to follow Christ Christmas gained an entire new meaning for me.
I guess as a parent you try to recreate the good things of your own childhood... and Christmas time certainly was in our family. I grieve at times, that my family is spread around the entire globe by now. No more all uncles, aunties, cousins, dogs, cats and goldfishes going to Oma and Opa to celebrate the birth of Christ together with yummy food, Christmas songs, fun, fellowship and of course presents. Oma nad Opa are still alive, but far away in Germany, so are lots of my aunties and uncles and cousins, but a fair share of them also live in the States. No more big family celebrations. I can't pass this memory on to my boys. BUT I can try to make it a special time nonetheless, so when they are older and grown up (past their teenager state so that they will really appreciate it) they remember this time to be special. And being a cross-cultural family there are many blessings. We can pick and choose whatever we'd like to do. Unfortunately Christmas sneaked up on me once again (I do know that it is the same time every year, but every year I seem to forget somehow), so I couldn't get some more good children's books about the true meaning of Christmas (any suggestions or recommendations????)
So I'm busy establishing our own "tradition" (which in our case has a very changeable character to it) picking from both cultures.
One thing I loved growing up was an advent calendar... so of course that was something I picked of course.
I mean, I knew that December - like every other months - starts on the first but once again I started a bit late with "project calendar"... two days before d-day... BUT it was finished on the first!!!! Offspring LOVES it, in fact he loves it so much he'd like to open his calendar 50 times a day. In honour of his grandbag (aka grandad) it is a train advent calendar.

I ran out of creative energy (and time) with Cedric's calendar, so his doesn't look fancy but he enjoys the content nonetheless.

Another very German thing is "Nikolaus"... (or Sintaclaas in the Netherlands). It is celebrated on the 6th of December (at least in my part of Germany). Nikolaus is celebrated in the Catholic church as a saint and was bishop of Myra in the second century... don't ask me where Myra is or was. He seemed to have been a God honouring man no matter how twisted this saint worship has made everything. He is the prototype of Santa actually... strange how the legend of a godly man turns in Mr. HoHoHooo. Back to Nikolaus though. In Germany children put out one of their boots on Nikolaus eve and in the morning it's filled with goodies... yuuuuummmm. It's a fun thing to do and definitely a keeper, don't you think?? I didn't want it to be a candy shower though and tried to read the story of the godly bishop unfortunately there weren't any photos accompanying the story I read, so I don't know how much Ned actually understood... but they liked putting their boots infront of the door... AND they liked getting their boots back the next morning.

In Germany generally you only put up your Christmas tree the last couple days leading up to Christmas, ideally parents set it up on the 24th and children then only see the tree once they are allowed into the living room in the evening once all the presents are under the tree (in Germany you get the presents on the 24th, yay, one day less suspense). And generally speaking, everyone has a real pine tree, nothing plastic please.
Well, since being married we never "bothered" with having our own tree. Frankly speaking, Ben isn't really into such things and I couldn't be bothered either, because real pine trees make A LOT of mess plus we'd be at Oma and Opa's anyway. This year though we won't be going their place, we won't even see them, sigh.. maybe we'll skype, but thankfully my mum and dad and brother will visit us this year. So we'll have Christmas eve at our place so we just plain NEED a tree (not really, but a tree makes everything look really nice and cozy, and with it being summer-ish I just need to help with the "Christmas atmosphere")... for that reason that tree is also up already and it's lovely. Ned helped decorating, Ced helps taking the decoration off again on a daily base (I shall put an electric fence up next)... and it's plastic (shhh, be quite my German heart, remember it doesn't make a needle mess which is great!! Thanks Kelly for lending it to us).

And there have to be Christmas bikkies OF COURSE!!! Ahhh, that smell... sigh!! Our tin is filled (almost emptied again) and the boys enjoy them... A LOT!!! This year for the first time I made (okay cut out) gingerbread men (thanks Heather for providing the dough) and discovered that I'm really talented decorating them... don't you think????

(this fellow happened quite accidentally, but he turned out great, don't you think??? Maybe a bit... morbid...)

Ou well, the boys devour them within 5min and don't care how they look, but maybe I keep him for memories sake, my first ever gingerbread man.

Christmas itself we'll do the German-Aussie way: celebrate on the 24th in the evening German style and on the 25th Aussie style and if the weather permits we plan on having a barbie at the beach.

So, enough of my superficial Christmas thoughts.. I gotta go!