Christmas 2010

I guess I should stop bugging other people about updating their blogs and work on my own. We just don't have too much excitement around here right now!

Christmas......... was AWESOME!

This year was a little different for us this year. Living with my parents and not having as much as we are used to to spend on gifts, I was really worried about how our Christmas would end up.

Turns out you don't need $ and having my family around made it so much more exciting!

I really tried to remember the meaning of Christmas this year and focus on the season rather than shopping and stress.

TIP #1 for achieving this......... amazon.com

I made a list of things we wanted to get for Zack based on our budget, and found them all for free shipping and cheaper prices on amazon and never once went into a store. I don't think.....

TIP #2 I purchased a book from Deseret Book called "A Christ Centered Christmas". I instantly loved this book for this reason, The author tells this story of her 3 year old: "We were driving around near Christmas time listening to Christmas music on the radio. My 3 year old said to me "mom, you believe in Jesus Christ and I believe in Santa." The author then tells how that comment made her realize that we spend way too much time focusing Santa Clause and forget to teach our children about Jesus Christ. That had real meaning to me seeing as my child wanted nothing to do with Santa and it was all I could to to get him to acknowledge his presence in the holiday.I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing, but it really made me think more about the true meaning of Christmas and so what if my 2 year old doesn't believe in Santa. That would actually save him some heartache later on! Next year we will begin the traditions suggested in this book head on and hopefully it will continue for years to come. I highly recommend this book!

TIP #3 We pretty much only bought gifts for our parents besides Zack. Might sound a little like i'm not a giving person, but I didn't have the time or money to do a whole lot so we just didn't.

TIP #4 I don't know how anyone else handles gifts between spouses, but we have always set a budget and usually gone over board, as well as buying things for ourselves. This year we set a very strict $50 budget and that was that. I was amazed at my husband and his creativity to make me something. I wish I had the energy to do the same! I think we will stick with the $50 budget from now on, it encourages us to be creative in our giving and holy cow is it less stressful! Even better neither of us got silly things that we didn't need. The gifts we did get were more meaningful.

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures this year, mostly video. I should have seeing as i've lost our entire batch of Christmas pictures from last year! What do you do? At least I put some of them on the blog.