I’m here linking up with Amanda from That Inspired Chick for this month’s Confessions post! (To see my Confessions from November click here.)
Today I thought I’d have a little holiday fun and do a Christmas confessions post. I’m answering a bunch of Christmas questions about me and I hope you will share some of your answers too!
Wrapping paper or gift bags?
#Teamwrappingpaper all the way! I love to wrap gifts and I especially love easy ways to make them pretty. Yesterday, I posted a set of free printable gift tags that I will be using on all our gifts this year! There are also some for gifts from Santa!
How do you do Santa with your kids?
Our Santa always brings one ‘large’ gift for each child and the rest are from Josh and me. They know it’s from Santa because they are wrapped in Santa’s special gold paper!
When do you open presents?
We always opened gifts on Christmas morning growing up and so did my husband. We continued that with our kids! I think it kind of builds the anticipation. 😉
What special traditions do you have for Christmas morning?
Just last year, we started the tradition of coming downstairs Christmas morning and immediately going into the kitchen (without looking at the gifts or Christmas tree!). We light candles on a birthday cake for Jesus and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him before we do anything. I heard this idea from a mom at our mom’s group last year and loved it! It’s so important to us to keep our kids focused on what is really important at Christmas time and celebrating Jesus first helps even our little ones understand. Especially because they ‘get’ the happy birthday song!
Do you like eggnog?
NO! My husband loves it. Like really loves it. He buys a carton every year and I gag.
Real tree or artificial?
Artificial. I know this is a heated topic. 😉 Neither of us grew up with a real tree so we’ve never really known anything different. I was actually talking to one of my friends about this the other day. We were saying that the whole idea of going out as a family to find and cut down a real tree sounds like Christmas magic. But cleaning up fallen needles, making sure it’s watered and not bringing in outside creatures is just stressful to me. I’m just not sure I’m a real tree person.
When do you take the Christmas tree down?
Well before we had twins, we would leave it up until after the new year. Last year though I could NOT handle another day with our one year old twins terrorizing it so we took it down the day after Christmas and I was not sorry about it. I hope we can leave it up longer this year but if you follow me on Instagram… you will see that may not be possible.
What is one of your favorite adult Christmas memories?
Obviously I love the magic of Christmas with our young children, but our first married Christmas was one of my very favorites. Josh and I chose to spend Christmas Eve just the two of us. We went to Church and then made lasagna together at home. We had decided not to get each other anything for Christmas that year (we were saving for a new car) but on a whim we went to Target and separately shopped for each other. We set a budget of $50 each and had the best time buying random stuff at Target. Josh rocked that challenge and got me some of my very favorite gifts to date. It was just a quiet, peaceful Christmas Eve together.
Favorite Christmas movie?
I really love The Santa Clause because it’s a classic. I also love 12 Dates of Christmas. It was one of those ABC family original movies a few years ago and it’s adorable. It’s actually on Netflix this year if you haven’t seen it. I seriously recommend it. Mark Paul Gosselaar at his best. #justsaying
What is your favorite Christmas gift you remember receiving?
When I was a teenager, I remember it was black corduroy overalls that all my friends had that I was dying to have. It’s fine.. you can laugh. They were seriously super stylish then. Recently though I think it was the necklace that Josh got me for the first Christmas after our twins were born. He completely surprised me and I absolutely cried.
What is your favorite Christmas decoration you own?
This plate. I found it at Hobby Lobby maybe 5 years ago and I loved it. I don’t know why it’s on a plate- it was all they had and I couldn’t pass it up. I’ve looked for this image in wall décor forever and have never been able to find anything else. I think it’s so powerful and I just love it. If you’ve seen this somewhere (perhaps not on a plate), please let me know!
I’m always keeping my eye out for a good kid friendly nativity too! We have a Little People nativity that our kids love to play with but I wish I had one that was fancier and didn’t look so much like a toy. It has to be pretty hardy though – I live with 5 boys. Haha!
A little fun holiday confessions post for your Thursday. Thanks for stopping by! Comment with some of your answers to these!
I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the posts!