What My Christmastime Baby Taught Me

I didn’t want a Christmastime baby. Silly reasons like birthdays being overshadowed by Christmas. But only after I had a Christmas baby (little Noelle, born nine days before Christmas last year) did I realize how much more special it would make her birthday. And how significant the event would be in my life and my understanding of Christ’s birth.

 Noelle is my second baby, so I’d been through labor and birth before and joined the sympathy club of women throughout the world and time who have done the same. But after giving birth to a child in my home with nothing but my own limited abilities, my family, and my prayers to God to get me through did I really think about what Mary went through to bring the Christ child into the world.

Giving birth on a dark winter’s night with the stockings hanging nearby and the lights of the Christmas tree reflecting off the Nativity, made me think of another little baby born so long ago who grew to be the Savior of the world. He began life as a helpless baby like you and me and my little one, Noelle. Yet he went on to save us all. His atonement made it possible for us all to repent and be forgiven, and made it so he knew and understood all the pain and anguish of the world—including the pain I went through to bring Noelle into the world. His death and resurrection made it possible for us all to live again. And for us to see loved ones who have died. Noelle will one day know her Papa Newman who died before she was born and her Great-Grandpa Newman who died this Christmas season.

I hope that as she grows older Noelle will know how special it is to celebrate her birthday at Christmastime, that she gets to share her birthday with the time that we are celebrating Jesus’ birthday. That while presents for her birthday and Christmas are fun, her birthday is a really a celebration of her and Christmas is a celebration of Christ’s birth and life. We named her Noelle as a reminder and a way to celebrate the time and circumstances of her birth. So happy first birthday, Noelle! Today we celebrate you. Thank you for coming to our family when you did and giving me such a beautiful lesson in the reason for Christmas in the first few days of your life. I will never be able to forget Christ at Christmas because your birth will ever be my reminder.

Christmas with Children

2012: My baby wants to play with the magnets belonging to the advent.

Christmas is just more magical when you have children. Even if you don't make a big deal out of Santa Claus (more thoughts on that to come).

This is my baby's second Christmas, but she was only nine days old for her first one. This year she is enthralled all the lights and colors and sparkles of Christmas. She spends much of her time reaching for the advent calendar, the stockings, and the tree. And Christmas day will be full of boxes and ribbon and crinkly wrapping paper--what could be better?

My favorite new thing this Christmas is my three year old. She remembers Christmas last year and is adding to her idea of Christmastime. Many people feel jaded by the commercialism of Christmas. But in her innocence, my little girl sees things a bit differently. She is amazed and excited every time we go into a store or any public place and she sees that, "Hey, look Mom! They have Christmas stuff here!" Every new evidence of Christmastime is something to be celebrated and wondered over.

2011: The wonder of getting presents is even better than the presents themselves.

A Gluten Free Thanksgiving

I like to think we would make an effort for one person in the family, but since there are five people in my family who eat gluten free, our Thanksgiving dinner was planned so almost everything was gluten free or had an alternative.

Here's how it went down:

Turkey: Used gluten free flour to coat the turkey bag.

Mashed Potatoes: Naturally gluten free.

Gravy: Used gluten free flour or cornstarch as a thickener. Not sure which since I didn't make it, but there are options.

Stuffing: Obviously gluten. There was discussion of making a gluten free one, but most of the gluten free eaters didn't even like stuffing anyway.

Cranberry Sauce: Naturally gluten free.

Sweet Potatoes: Naturally gluten free.

Green Beans: Skipped the traditional creamy sauce w/ french fried onion topping. I wrapped them in bacon and drizzled them with a sweetened garlic soy sauce. I used my sister's soy sauce because many soy sauces have gluten in them. My 11 month old ate the green beans like candy, and even my brother who never eats green beans tried them because they came with bacon.

Veggie Tray: Naturally gluten free. The ranch dip had to be checked to be sure it was gluten free, and for me it was egg free too.

Rolls: Someone made gluten free rolls. A few others brought store bought gluten rolls. If I'd been at home, I'd have made some rolls, but I didn't want to spread gluten flour around my sister's gluten free kitchen. There were separate butters and jams for each and the gluten and gluten free rolls were put on opposites sides of the table.

Pies: Gluten free pies were made. Gluten pies were mostly bought (with one apple pie being made from a store bought crust). There were separate whipped creams and were put on the opposite ends of the tables like the rolls.

All of this planning satisfied my love of organizing things. And I even got to make little labels to keep things clear and separated.

Some might think that this is a lot of work, but even my  limited understanding of celiac disease and gluten intolerance tells me that even if we all had to eat gluten free rolls and pies, it would be worth it. My sister has written a great piece about what it means to have her husband and son eat gluten free (which I'd love to post here, hint, hint). The risks are not worth the possibility of a crumb of contamination. Plus we all ate good food and stuffed ourselves silly without having any component of Thanksgiving dinner that was important to us left out. And isn't that what Thanksgiving's all about? Oh, family was there too.

A Thankful Thanksgiving

I'm excited for Christmas. But even while the Christmas music plays, I'm trying to remember Thanksgiving and all the things I'm thankful for. We watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and as much as I've tried to talk to my daughter about what Thanksgiving means, all she comes up with when I ask her about it is that we get to eat pumpkin pie. Which is an awesome part about Thanksgiving.

This year we made Thankful Trees. Ivy, Mommy, and Daddy each got a tree to put leaves on of things we are thankful for.

Ivy's first thing she was thankful for was Jesus, then Daddy, then Noelle, then Mommy. She repeated those things every new time I asked her what she wanted to put on her tree. After I pointed out that we had them up there, she started naming grandmas and grandpa and cousins and aunts and uncles and friends. I put cousins on one leaf because we didn't have enough space to name them all individually.

Some of the things I wrote that I was thankful for had to do with what happened that day. Playgroup was playgroup day. Our washer and dryer was on the day when our washer was leaking and I didn't have a washer for a couple of days. Husband and children and family are obvious ones, but they are what I think of first and what I am most grateful for.

Since Daddy works long hours, he had a harder time keeping up with our trees, but he busted out a whole bunch of them one day and Ivy helped him glue them on. Which is the best part of any project for Ivy, the gluing.

What are you thankful for this year? What are you doing to stop and remember all you have to be thankful for?

Preschool: Families

The month of November is about gratitude in our home preschool. Last week's focus was on family. We drew a picture of our little family which my daughter identified as herself, Daddy, her sister, and with some prompting, Mommy too.

I stole the next idea from my sister and we made a stick figure family tree of my side of the family and another one for my husband's side. I did the drawing, but I asked Ivy who each aunt and uncle had married and who their kids were. She did pretty good. And I thought it was great timing for reviewing the members of our extended family because we're going to see them all the week of Thanksgiving.

This week's focus is on friends. And without planning it to coincide with this week, we actually have two playdates at our house. So we'll have lots of friend time and I'll probably talk to her about sharing and being nice and how we treat our friends in preparation for having so many people over.