Gilliam Family 25 Days of Christmas

Last year on Halloween night we were sitting at home.  Gabe was just a few days old, we were in complete survival mode, and as the doorbell began to ring we realized that we had completely forgotten a holiday that most children adore.  Y'all know I don't get too beat up about Halloween and Piper didn't realize she was missing anything , but I began to fear that her experience of Christmas might be the same as we continued to fumble our way through this new stage of life, living on little sleep and even less energy for anything other than basic needs.  Thus, the Gilliam Family 25 Days of Christmas was born.

I sat down with a calendar.  I filled in what we already had reserved in December with church events, work parties, family get-togethers, and the like, and then I filled in the rest of the days with fun, but manageable Christmas themed activities.  The items on the list ranged from "read a Christmas story in our PJs while we drink hot chocolate before bed" to "pile in the car to drive around and pick your favorite Christmas light displays" and "decorate a Gingerbread house together".  This year, I have come up with a similar calendar and with a little more time to prepare, have been able to plan for daily readings from the Jesus Storybook Bible- you can find a guide here.

There are only 2 rules when it comes to the Gilliam Family 25 Days of Christmas:
1.  In everything we do, we look for every opportunity to point our children and ourselves to Jesus.  We would be remiss if our Christmas festivities didn't focus on our reason for celebrating.  This doesn't mean that we shun Santa or Christmas trees, we are just always looking for ways to redeem our time and celebrate the gospel.  I would love to expound on this later.
2.  We are flexible.  If I've learned one thing as a parent it's that where there is no flexibility there is no fun.  I've wasted many an hour crying over what didn't go perfectly, and missed opportunities for sweet family time.  We definitely didn't get to everything on our list last year, and we probably won't do everything on our list this year.  The important thing is, we are fixing our eyes on Jesus and creating memories with our family.

It is my hope that I'll get to feature some of our activities during the month of December.  I'll share what goes right, what goes terribly wrong, and hopefully, the ways the Lord uses this season to draw us closer to Himself.