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Posts Tagged ‘Christmas preparations’

For Advent last night, we planned to make our own gingerbread ornaments. It was supposed to look like this: (of course this was mine ;D)

But the kids’ finished product were these:

Nathan: Thankful for our trip to Coron

Ryan: Thankful for his baseball

Janina: Thankful for her puppy, Vanilla

Part of me wanted to force them to do it the way it should be done, to follow the rules. The objective of our ornament-making activity was for them to make an ornament, write on it what one thing they’re thankful for this year, while having a great time as a family. I saw how everyone was having fun making their silly gingerbread ornaments, so I just held my tongue and let them have their way.

Rules are good but there are times, we can just throw the rules out the window and allow our kids to have fun!

P.S. And this was Paolo’s. He didn’t follow the rules too ;D

We just finished watching the movie “Elf”, a funny and touching Christmas movie that our family watches every Christmas. Though we love this movie, it is sad that it and even most Christmas movies don’t really talk about the real essence of Christmas. Not just movies, but even the songs that we hear playing on the radio hardly talk about real meaning of Christmas. Interestingly enough, the top 5 Christmas songs for this year are: White Christmas, The Chipmunk Song, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, and Jingle Bell Rock, none of which really mention the coming of Jesus. Pop culture has kicked Christ out of Christmas.

I hope that we spend some time to sit down with our kids to bring their focus to what’s really important this season: JESUS. Last night we had a family huddle, which we call Advent night. We sang Christmas carols like Away in a Manger and In Excelsis Deo, and started reading the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. We have an Advent night once a week, just to make sure our kids are not too distracted with all the parties and presents and forget what we are really celebrating.

Paolo reading to the kids

Nathan plays the piano as we sing Christmas carols

Inspite of our hectic schedule this month, we need to make an effort and deliberately teach our kids the reason behind the season.

The smiles that make all the preparations worth it!

Whenever I smell peach potpourri, I am always reminded of my 18th birthday because my give-aways at my debut were little baskets filled with dried barks of peach fragrance. Isn’t it interesting when we walk into a room and smell something that triggers certain memories from the past? How often have you gotten a sniff of a particular scent and it fills you with nostalgia and brings back feelings from a particular experience, whether pleasant or unpleasant?

“Scents have an uncanny ability to trigger memories because they are the only sense that directly connects to the part of the brain that stores emotional memories“. Because of this, I always use cinnamon-scented candles in our home every Christmas, and I don’t use it on any other time of the year. I want my children to associate that scent with happy memories from our Christmas celebrations. I want my children, when they are all grown-up already, to smell cinnamon and say “Hey, that scent brings back a lot of good feelings from our childhood Christmases!”

The fragrance of cinnamon was not a purposeful choice. It’s just that years ago, when I first shopped around for red candles, most of them came in cinnamon scent. And we loved it! So we stuck with it and continued to use it for Christmas year after year.

So as you decorate your homes for Christmas, remember what a little fragrance can do. It doesn’t have to be cinnamon, it can be vanilla or pine, but whatever scent you choose, the more important thing is to build good memories that your children can associate with it.

Every year, we kick off the Christmas season by decorating our tree together as a family. It warmed my heart when Janina exclaimed how she loves our tree because of the different ornaments we have collected over the years and said that she wants to continue the tradition with her own family. This tradition was inspired by our pastors Steve and Deborah Murrell, and it gave a more special meaning to our Christmas tree. Our kids always look forward to opening our box of christmas decor and reminiscing memories attached to each ornament.

Decorating our tree is only one of the different activities we do as part of our Christmas traditions to make the holidays memorable for our children. Here are some of the Punzalan collection:

Our very first ornament from Shakey's Pizza 1995;D

Ryan's first ornament 2003

Ornament from our Paris trip 2009

Disneyland ornament from when we celebrated Christmas in the U.S 2005

Nathan's ornament because he loves to play the piano