As you all know we love us some Christmas time around here! We have been out to McAdenville at least three times. We go to check out the lights in our neighborhood at least 4 times a week. We have been to the Billy Graham Library (I would not advise this for other parents of two-year-olds, but Jeremy loved the sleigh ride). We have been to the Mount Holly Christmas parade.
In my head, I have a list of about fifty things I want to do with Jeremy and Daniel for Christmas. This all stems from my wonderful mother. You know how you pick up characteristics like your parents? Well, there are two big characteristics my mom has that I did not manage to pick up. This is weird because if you ask most people they will say I'm exactly like my mom.
The first is her emotional connection with people. Everyone knows I'm terrible with knowing what to say to a person when they get emotional. We have a motto in our family (well, immediate family - me, Doug, and the boys). It's "we don't do emotions". That's not totally true - we do happy, and the boys do sad and angry sometimes. Anyway, we try not to get too dramatic around here. This means I feel completely frozen and don't know what to say when something dramatic happens to someone. For example, if someone starts crying it takes everything in me not to run in the opposite direction. I want to do something to help, I just never know what so I'm pretty much emotionally retarded.
Anyway, back to Christmas. The other characteristic my mom has that I seem to have missed out on is crafty-ness. A lot of times these two characteristics kind of combine and the result will be that she makes something special for someone who is hurting. That is awesomeness. But her crafty-ness manifested itself the most at Christmas time in our house growing up. We were always doing something. Decorating cookies, making wreaths, making Christmas crafts, decorating the house.
So I wanted to do some of these things with the boys. The only problem is I missed this gene somehow! I mean, I can't even match clothes (my hubby does this for me - isn't that horrible?!?!)! Much less try to tell you what looks good where as far as Christmas decorations go. After some trials today, we completely ditched the Christmas craft idea. Too bad because I had been saving baby food jars for a month. I tried to make this little snowman out of a baby food jar, and I couldn't 'even figure it out with Jeremy asleep. I didn't want to think of how it would go once he got up and started throwing the pom-poms and pipecleaners around the kitchen. Instead, we did cookies today. Jeremy had a great time and I guess that's all that matters. It really doesn't matter that I used some cookies from a mix instead of making the nifty homemade recipe that my mom has in my cookbook for me. It also doesn't matter that my kitchen looked like a bomb exploded in it after we got finished. It doesn't matter that hardly any of the cookies resembled the cookie cutters after we took them out of the oven. And it definitely doesn't matter that it took me at least 20 minutes to figure out that you have to use a TON of flour to not make a pasty mess that WILL not be transferred to a cookie sheet no matter how hard you try. I took some video that I'll have to post later.
Anyway, here's to my crafty mom who inspired me to at least try to do fun crafty things with my children. Here's hoping I won't remember the trials next year so I'll do it again! :)
In my head, I have a list of about fifty things I want to do with Jeremy and Daniel for Christmas. This all stems from my wonderful mother. You know how you pick up characteristics like your parents? Well, there are two big characteristics my mom has that I did not manage to pick up. This is weird because if you ask most people they will say I'm exactly like my mom.
The first is her emotional connection with people. Everyone knows I'm terrible with knowing what to say to a person when they get emotional. We have a motto in our family (well, immediate family - me, Doug, and the boys). It's "we don't do emotions". That's not totally true - we do happy, and the boys do sad and angry sometimes. Anyway, we try not to get too dramatic around here. This means I feel completely frozen and don't know what to say when something dramatic happens to someone. For example, if someone starts crying it takes everything in me not to run in the opposite direction. I want to do something to help, I just never know what so I'm pretty much emotionally retarded.
Anyway, back to Christmas. The other characteristic my mom has that I seem to have missed out on is crafty-ness. A lot of times these two characteristics kind of combine and the result will be that she makes something special for someone who is hurting. That is awesomeness. But her crafty-ness manifested itself the most at Christmas time in our house growing up. We were always doing something. Decorating cookies, making wreaths, making Christmas crafts, decorating the house.
So I wanted to do some of these things with the boys. The only problem is I missed this gene somehow! I mean, I can't even match clothes (my hubby does this for me - isn't that horrible?!?!)! Much less try to tell you what looks good where as far as Christmas decorations go. After some trials today, we completely ditched the Christmas craft idea. Too bad because I had been saving baby food jars for a month. I tried to make this little snowman out of a baby food jar, and I couldn't 'even figure it out with Jeremy asleep. I didn't want to think of how it would go once he got up and started throwing the pom-poms and pipecleaners around the kitchen. Instead, we did cookies today. Jeremy had a great time and I guess that's all that matters. It really doesn't matter that I used some cookies from a mix instead of making the nifty homemade recipe that my mom has in my cookbook for me. It also doesn't matter that my kitchen looked like a bomb exploded in it after we got finished. It doesn't matter that hardly any of the cookies resembled the cookie cutters after we took them out of the oven. And it definitely doesn't matter that it took me at least 20 minutes to figure out that you have to use a TON of flour to not make a pasty mess that WILL not be transferred to a cookie sheet no matter how hard you try. I took some video that I'll have to post later.
Anyway, here's to my crafty mom who inspired me to at least try to do fun crafty things with my children. Here's hoping I won't remember the trials next year so I'll do it again! :)
3 comments:
i will have to let you read a paper lauren wrote about me and her Christmas memories of us trying to make Christmas cookies. somehow they always turned out flat and burned. it made me feel so good when i read the paper. she wrote it in college. when the boys get a little older it will be fun to do Christmas crafts. also you do have a way of making people feel good. you just don't realize you are doing it. can't wait to see you guys over Christmas
Hey baby, your boys are so blessed to have you! Doug is so wonderful to want you to be home with them! You're fantastic as a mom, wife, daughter and friend!!!! God really blessed us with the gift of you.
Elizabeth and I made lots of cookie dough yesterday and have it in the frig for Friday. We have some easy Christmas crafts to make, too. So no worries...we'll do some Christmas stuff on Friday. :)
So me falling apart like a wet noodle in your living room must have been torture for you, huh? :-).
I tend to treat people the way I would want to be treated. Since I usually want to be left alone, this is often the wrong response. That's why God gave me ABM -- he reminds me of what I should do.
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