Our Christmas tradition for the 25th, is to eat Bacon and egg biscuits! I make Paula Dean's biscuit recipe from scratch, buy local bacon, pre-packaged, and cook the eggs in the grease, we do this about once a year, so we really look forward to it.
Our gas stove top was having problems the past few days, and finally did not work right when we wanted to scramble our eggs. I had remembered that our friends had the same problem and the fix-it man 'dropped' it back down in its place and it was good for a little while. I tried that and that made it worse. David was going to cook our eggs outside over a fire, but it was not getting hot enough fast enough. Finally, we cooked them in the microwave. Thankfully we had cooked the biscuits and bacon the day before (while I had a helper here), so everything turned out fine and YUM!
Final Day of Advent! The Messiah is born!
We LOVE this tradition and This book:
The Advent Book, it is beautiful, filled with Scripture and our kids end up having it memorized by December 25th! Worth every penny. They love opening the doors.
Wise men above, King Herod below.
We started a new tradition this year with an Advent Banner that a friend of ours made, along with devotionals to go with it. We did this after breakfast and read The Advent Book at night along with another very kid-friendly calendar that is just sticking the picture on, no devotional attached to it. We plan to add to the depth of this banner and its meaning every year as the kids get older. Our name is on the bottom in case you can't see it.
After breakfast, Advent celebrations, and much singing, We get down the stockings.
Daddy goes first: He had many home-made cards inside.
And a nerd-rope from mommy (from Bangkok)
Mommy goes next. Bella had drawn a picture of hens eating (we had done it together), she wrote the name of the month like this: Deesibre and drew the math problem 5+5=10. Good job girl.
This is another picture from Bella, it is mommy with a baby in a baby carrier or sling, I think she may have done this when I was in Bangkok because there was also an airplane in the picture.
Tobin is ready and waiting patiently.
We allowed them to do this at the same time since they all had the same thing.
Movie ticket to the theater
Sour skittles, each got their own small bag!
Nerd Rope!
And then we played a little version of 'The Wise Man' game, with clues leading to a bigger gift. I made up four rhyming clues, Sophia led them in reading each one and they all figured it out and followed. It was very simple!
The clues:
Hello Children, Merry
Christmas to you!
To find your gifts you
have to follow this clue:
Where mommy gets out her
kettle bell
Is where your next clue
will dwell
Go to the place where the
movies sit
See if I’m there or is it
a trick?
Now go to the Tree hanging
on our front door
Behind it you will find
clue number four.
Hurry to Daddy and Mommy’s
window seat
Your gifts will be waiting
all nice and neat!
The girls received American Girl Dolls, from taobao, MUCH cheaper than the original price. We were not quite sure what we were getting, but we were very pleased. They are real. They are beautiful. The girls LOVE them. We couldn't really maneuver and make our own like from the website, but we did try to get ones that looked like each of them.
Brown hair, brown eyes.
Bella's came from a different vendor, and was much cheaper. We do think hers is real, but an old factory reject maybe. Her hair tangles more easily, and she has an interesting smell. We may replace hers down the road, but she has no clue about the difference.
blonde hair, brown eyes. This is the historical 'Julie' doll from the 1970s, but Bella has chosen to call her Julianna, and Sophia has named hers, 'Ellie'. They also received PJs for their dolls and one dress. The clothes were so cheap that we bought 10 outfits and have them stored for gifts down the road, or to put in the school store.
Tobin received quite a few more train tracks and trains (ikea), that included a tunnel and bridge making ability.
They LOVE these dolls.
Sophia said: 'if I ever stop playing with my doll, which I won't, then I want you to put it in my keepsake box so when I grow up and have a daughter she can have it' exact quote.
After playing a bit, we went out for lunch and ate dumplings, stopping by the fix-it shop to see about our walkie talkies. We came back rested, (I took a nap, a great Christmas gift), played in the afternoon, and had a friend over for leftovers, she ate all of the biscuit, bacon and eggs!
We had a very blessed day.
Now, we are looking forward to what God has in store for us this new year!
