I started a tradition years ago with our family on Christmas day,...we all meet at our home for a great big Christmas Breakfast with the whole family. Once everyone gets here we all sit down to a big festive Christmas breakfast. My brothers wife had her own family to celebrate with and it was tough on them going from home to home for Christmas. So I started having everyone here in the morning for a big Christmas breakfast, open our gifts and fellowship together for a few hours and then my brother and his wife would take off about noon and spend the rest of the day with her side of the family.
We then have some friends and neighbors over for Christmas dinner and end the evening with games and desserts. This has really worked out well for all of us.
When the kids were much younger they'd race down the stairs, jump in their chairs, gobble down their food and be ready to open presents before we even had a chance to sit down and eat. So I created a Christmas yarn ball for them and ta da...problem solved. Here is what I do and how it works,....and I promise you this will give you time to eat and enjoy your breakfast with out whining and fussing from the sweet children who are anxious about those gifts under the tree.
I take three yarn balls, one for each child, and wrap it around fun little treasures creating a new yarn ball for each child. I have wrapped up all sorts of fun goodies over the years:
A note telling them were a special gift awaits for them in another part of the house
Starbucks cards for hot cocoa
Gum
Money
Small bouncy balls
Candy
Little cars
Little dolls
Chocolate kisses
Anything I could find that was rather small
Dave and I would wrap all these little gifts in these yarn balls while watching TV together at night while they were sleeping. Once all the goodies are all wrapped up in their Christmas Yarn balls, I then place one yarn ball on each of their chairs at the Breakfast table. As soon as they'd finish up their breakfast they would then sit in their chairs and unwind the Christmas yarn ball finding all sorts of fun little treasures through out the yarn ball.
Now,...the important rule here is that this special Christmas yarn ball only showed up on Christmas morning if they were all wrapped back up in to a ball for the next year and put in the Christmas basket under the tree.
This allowed all of us to enjoy or breakfast in the morning with out the kids going stir crazy waiting on us to eat.
It's a good yarn for sure!
And yes, I still do this to this day for my kids...now it is full of money, silly string, Starbucks cards, etc....
I will share our ribbon tradition with you next!
I hope you enjoy this ~
6 comments:
You are brilliant!!!!
that is a lovely tradition, and now looking forward to reading about your ribbon one! I love reading about other peoples trads - its so interesting.
Gosh Christine this is a neat idea....I might have to do this for my kids.
What a neat idea!!! I love it! So funny, too, because I am sure the kids never realized the yarn was to keep them busy! :)
This is a wonderful idea! I just wanna check tho - were all these little gifties all wrapped up in one yarn ball, or was each gift wrapped in a separate ball? Would love to know!
We always let the kids get into their Christmas stockings before we were up and ready to go - it gave them something too, to do while they were waiting for slow poke mom and dad!
And isn't the book captivating good? We did that too in Bible Study. Have you read The Shack yet?
And I hope you don't live near Seattle, I was hoping you lived in Michigan!
My kiddos are out of the nest also - my oldest baby graduated from college last year, and is living twelve hours away, and this Thanksgiving was the first time we weren't all together for a holiday! My baby/baby is in college too, but only an hour away thankfully!
Anyway - hugs from Michigan - Diane
Yes, I tuck as many treasures in each yarn ball that I can...the more the merrier! =O)
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