Christmas

Christmas traditions. We have a few and hopefully we started a new one today. We start every Christmas morning with Sticky Buns. That is a Replogle family tradition and we are keeping it alive. We all love them! A few years ago I gave my husband a month of pies. That tradition has also persisted and people outside our family even ask about it. The rule is there needs to be a pie in the house every day during the month of December and Dad gets the first slice of all new pies.

But this year we have had some financial constraints with me going to grad school. So we asked everyone to give the gift of service to each other. It was really cool to hear all the ways we will be serving each other over the next couple months. Doing each other chores, taking someone to a movie, foot massages, fishing dates, get out of chores for a day and many others. My husband and I also gave the kids the gift of words. We wrote letters to each of our kids and talked about the things we love about them. Yes, there were presents, but they didn't get the center stage this year.

We also expanded our pie tradition. Each of the kids gets to pick out their own pie and then I will teach them how to make it! Tonight my 14 year old son and I made an apple pie and he ate the entire thing with a mountain dew. He had a big smile on his face. Sometimes, that's all you need as a parent isn't it?

I suppose God does things like that for us all the time just to make us smile. I hope he feels the same joy I do.