Celebrate Today- ceremonies and celebrations to make your days count

Last week, we were invited over to our sweet friends' house (the Andersons) for dinner and to share in one of their holiday traditions.  For me who loves this kind of thing, it was such an honor to get to be a part of one of their annual Christmas celebrations. Brooke told me that one of her mom's friends came up with this idea, and her family kept this going through the years as she was growing up. Through the years, she commented that she and her siblings would roll their eyes some years as they would announce the night for this tradition, but now as a mom, she and her sister both do this every year and would not miss it.  It's true that some of our traditions become more meaningful to us as time goes on, and we become the ones to keep the flame alive as we've recognized what rich memories they hold for us through the years.   This tradition is now fondly called "NATIVI-TIME" by Brooke and her sister.   First, we gathered in the living room a

When we lived in Nashville, we lived down the street from Sara,  who was a tried and true fairy godmother to Anna and Taylor during our days there on Halcyon Avenue.  She told me about a tradition of sewing on jingle bells to our stockings each Christmas to mark how old the children are each year.  The best tip was to keep a needle and thread along with a bag of jingles bells at the bottom of the stocking each year so that when we got our Christmas decorations out, all the materials were right there to stitch them on.    It's a quick and easy sewing project as we get the decorations out  and it's a sweet reminder to savor some time with these two this Christmas  because these bells seem to be adding up way too fast!  Taylor's 9 bells  Anna's 12 bells 

Each year, we pick a special ornament that represents something about the past year for Anna and Taylor.  This can be an ornament from the collection we already have, a small toy that belongs to them that we could hang on the tree, a handmade ornament or a new purchase to add to the collection.  Taylor's special ornament collection  This is one of my all time favorite ornaments in the kids' collections.  It was an ornament I had bought just because it was cute, and Taylor asked if it could be his ornament for 2013 last year.  This little elf with shorts on and the little legs sticking out from the bottom was perfect to remember this season in which Taylor wears shorts 99% of the time.   2014 ornament that we just added to our collection.  2006 ornament  2008 ornament to commemorate that Anna dressed up as Wonder Woman  for Halloween and her birthday that year  2009 ornament  (because what's not to love about pink sparkles!) 

Today (December 6th) is St. Nicholas Day,  and  to celebrate this fun  occasion,  we carried on our tradition of secretly delivering some treats to a few neighbors tonight with a little note.   Some years, we have baked cookies and delivered them,  but we simplified and just printed off this St. Nicholas template to wrap around snack size candy bars. Last year we used Hershey bars and this year, Kit Kat was the candy of choice since those are Taylor's favorite in case we had some leftovers.  http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/candy-bar-wrappers/ This was the note that we delivered with the Kit Kats wrapped up in St. Nicholas attire.  We had to dart behind the alley a few times as doors opened and people looked around,  but of course that just added to the fun.  My favorite part of the night was when Anna ran up to me after sprinting from a neighbor's porch while trying not to get caught, and she said, "This is THRILLING!"