The Animals' Christmas Eve

You can't go wrong with a classic Little Golden Book.

Purple Butterfly received this book as Christmas present from a friend her first Christmas, and I immediately fell in love with it. The Animals' Christmas Eve by Gale Wiersum and illustrated by Alexandra Steele-Morgan is a sweet retelling of the Nativity story told from the point of view of the animals in a barn on Christmas Eve. It's also a counting book from 1-12, which I just find clever. Each number represents an animal telling part of the Nativity story, with the number 12 being the bells of Christmas Day. The illustrations are darling with farm animals that are drawn to be warm and fuzzy looking, without being overly cute.

I do have a slight issue that number 3 mentions the Three Wise Men (obviously) before Mary, Joseph, or the Baby Jesus are mentioned, but it is a counting book, and where else would the Three Wise Men be? It can be easily overlooked by the rest of the sweetness contained in the telling.

It's Christmas Time

Not only is it after Thanksgiving, it's December 1st, which is sufficiently late enough to start thinking about Christmas, no matter who you are. If I had an Advent calendar for the girls, we'd be breaking it out. But I slipped up on that this year. Next year I will not be so forgetful.

I think about Christmas when I was a kid, and it really sparkled. It was magical. And it wasn't just the presents. It was time with family, baking, the decorations, the music, just everything about this time of year was magical. And my mom had lots to do with that. When my mom died, Christmas lost so much of that sparkle. It was still a special time of year, but I now realize how much of the magic was my mom's doing.

Now I'm a mom, and it's hitting me that making Christmas sparkle for my kids in now my job. Wow. That seems like such a tall order. I don't know why Christmas memories would take any more precidence than any other childhood memories, but there's a lot pressure to make sure that Christmas is special. How am I going to do that?

Honestly, I don't think my mom put a Herculean effort into Christmas. She did what she could, and everything else fell into place. There's enough environmental hoopla about Christmas that it probably won't take too much effort on my part, either, to make it sparkle. We need to establish a few traditions and just have fun.

It's the traditions that are tripping me up. The Christmas traditions I grew up with are still in place - Christmas Eve with my immediate and extended family, Christmas morning and day at my dad's house. That was Purple Butterfly's first Christmas. Being late in pregnancy last Christmas kept the Butterflies in their own house, and it was nice. I want my kids to wake up in their own house Christmas morning, just like I did for 33 years. But I also want them to spend Christmas Eve with their grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Not an easy task when the two are 2.5 hours away.

So we'll make our own Christmas Eve tradition and wake up in our own house with our own tree that we cut down and hung with our own ornaments. And then at some point we'll make the 2.5 hour trip to visit the extended family, and have Christmas there. Of course, when to make that trip is also a decision...

Regardless, as long as we're together as a family, I think there's enough magic in Christmas that there will be enough sparkle for my daughters.