I started singing Christmas songs to Holly in place of regular bedtime songs every night even before Thanksgiving. I wanted her to be able to learn lots of Christmas songs this year. The first song I sang to her was "Holly Jolly Christmas" and she was a big fan. Every night she would request a song with her name in it, and when she'd hear me sing her name she would get this proud smile on her face. She also enjoyed "Deck the Halls" (with boughs of Holly), "Silent Night", and "Angels We Have Heard on High." The first time I sang "Angels We Have Heard on High" and got to the "glorias" she asked, "What means gloria?" I told her that's how the angels said "Hooray, Jesus is born." From then on, the angels in our Fisher Price Little People nativity would say, "Gloria!"
As soon as we got home from Thanksgiving in California, we put up our lovely Christmas tree and began to decorate the house. Holly loved hanging "ordiums" and "ordamums" on the tree. We pulled stuff out of the Christmas bins one at a time, a few times each day over several days, and made each one a "Christmas surprise." I'd tell Holly that as soon as she'd finish her lunch, I had another Christmas surprise ready for her! Then we'd pull out a $1 sheet of gel clings and decorate a window, or find the snowman pillow to display on the armchair. The snowman snowglobe, a tiny wind-up music box, a cereal bowl with reindeer on it, a vinyl placemat dotted with gingerbread men...each was a treasure received with excitement. It was pretty fun to be able to offer so many thrills.
We read a scripture to the light of a Christmas candle on at least most of the nights in December, and Holly did seem to internalize a few of the characteristics we learned about the Savior. One night the scripture was on service, and I briefly explained that Jesus wants us to serve people like he did, and we talked about some examples. The next day Holly heard Ben fussing and brought him a toy, then exclaimed, "Mom, I served Baby Ben!"
We went to Journey to Bethlehem at the Seventh Day Adventist church for the second year in a row. It's an elaborate, real-life nativity experience that you walk through, as if on your own "journey to Bethlehem" like Mary and Joseph were. Holly was too scared to enjoy most of it, but at the end when we got to the shepherds, angels and finally the stable and baby Jesus, she seemed relieved. At our stake Christmas Creche, Adam, Ben and I spent an hour dressed as the Holy Family in the stable, and I sang some songs with a quartet of ladies from our ward at the creche as well.
My calling is the ward music chair and I had the job of rounding up a lot of musical numbers during the Christmas season. One musical number for each Sunday from Thanksgiving through Christmas, which was 5 numbers, plus 8 numbers for the program at the ward Christmas party, and then 6 more for the Christmas sacrament service the Sunday before Christmas. So when added to the 6 songs my quartet sang at the creche, I was involved in the development of 25 musical numbers this Christmas. It was quite the whirlwind of merry musicmaking, but I was glad when all the performances were over.
We checked out some Christmas books from the library and have a couple board books retelling the Christmas story, and we read them every night. I have found the repetition of the Christmas story to be a very good thing this year. Not only does Holly know the story quite well by now, but telling it so often has kept the birth of the Savior on the forefront of my mind each day. Despite the stress and demands of the holiday season, teaching a little child helped me to keep Christ at the center of my Christmas.
I really enjoyed this post. I love hearing about all the little details on how you celebrate and what you do to make it special. That was quite the feat with all the musical numbers! How nice your ward pushes to have so many. Very sweet Holly-ness you shared. :)
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