Holy-days {Advent & Christmas 2017}

[edited version of last year's Advent post]

Simple. Focused. Intentional.

That is our motto for this time of year.

If you want bunches of ideas for celebrating Christmas, you should probably go to Pinterest. We are more about cutting out a lot of the hoopla -- going for special and memorable (yes) but simple. It is Jesus' birthday; so, we focus on Advent ("waiting with hope") and then throwing a birthday party for Jesus. Simple as that. This was the second year we were home on Christmas Day! Here is what we did this month:

Devotions: Advent is where we put most of our emphasis, because what is this holy-day about if we do not prepare our hearts waiting for the Christ-child to come? We had our Advent wreath (carved out of wood, with 24 candle holes, and there's a movable donkey carrying Mary) out but did not use it regularly. This year, we used a new book -- All is Bright: A Devotional Journey to Color Your Way to Christmas (we alternated coloring a page one day and reading a page the next night).

Activities: We had company during most of this month and some rearranging, but it all happened! Sometime in the course of each day, we:

1. Aolani hung an ornament we made two years ago on our Jesse Tree 
2. Read a Christmas book. I arranged and stacked all of the Christmas books we own according to our schedule (I usually get two new ones every year). Then, I hid the stack and each night Ricky would put one out for the next day. 
3. This year we did an Advent Activities Calendar. I came up with 24 things to do, one for each day leading up to Jesus' birthday. I adjusted the calendar so that the daily activities suited our monthly plans (i.e., we made the dessert for Micaiah the day before his birthday). We missed some days, but ended up working them in and just doubling up on other days. The list of this year's activities are below. Ricky would put the next day's activity in the bag at night.
4. Schooling: I took eleven weeks off from schooling the kids (mid-October until after the new year), so we have time for a new baby, visitors, and Advent stuff.
5. Our Advent devotional in the evening with Daddy (depending)

1. Play hide & seek in a tree lot
2. Make play-dough candy canes (didn't happen)
3. Make paper snowflakes 
4. Make pipe-cleaner poinsettias 
5. Put together Christmas care package for missionaries 
6. Invite family friends over to celebrate St. Nicholas Day by reading his biography and watching the Veggie Tales about him 
7. Make snowflake window art 
8. Act out the nativity story with friends
9. Make white chocolate-covered pretzels
10. Pick out Jesus’ birthday gifts (moved to Christmas day) 
11. Make glitter globes 
12. Watch Home Alone movie with friends 
13. Make a birthday treat for Micaiah 
14. Watch Christmas movie marathon
15. Make and decorate gingerbread cookies 
16. Watch The Nativity Story movie under blankets 
17. Deliver cookies to a halfway house 
18. Make and give apple bread to our neighbors (moved)
19. Watch The Star movie in theater
20. Go on a Christmas light scavenger hunt (in pajamas w/ a hot drink)
21. Dance to Christmas music
22. Have a "Fancy Dress" dinner and tea (we paid a friend to come over and cook an elaborate meal and dessert for eight people)
23. Make a pillow bed on living room floor and watch Christmas cartoons 
24. Make a birthday cake for Jesus 
25. Throw Jesus a birthday party!

Decorations: Most noticeably, we do not have a Christmas tree. We are not totally against them; we just choose (for several reasons) not to erect one at this time. We have other items (ornaments, stockings, nativity sets...) on display and hanging around. We keep the Christmas music playing. Also, we simply hang the Christmas cards we receive on ribbon with clothespins. This year we decorated our house on the last day of November instead of the first day of December.

Treats: Our treats were almost daily this year -- banana pudding, cupcakes, gingerbread cookies, white-chocolate-covered pretzels, apple bread, gingerbread cake, ice cream, vanilla drinks, rosemary cornmeal cookies, gingersnaps, etc.

Presents:  This was our third year of doing it differently. Whereas we use to not exchange presents amongst just ourselves, we have asked our extended families to work in "Christmas presents" with other events -- like new year's or increase birthday or summer or a new school year or a visit or other holidays. We want to teach our kids that just as they get presents on their birthday, Jesus gets the gifts on His birthday (see Matthew 25:45) -- just keeping it simple (and imitating St. Nicholas!). After I had collected like a dozen gift catalogs over the past month or so, we spread them out, allotted each person an equal amount of money, and let them go! Yet, we do buy a few New Year's gifts for ourselves as a family and some friends that are to encourage faith and witness (such as Voice of the Martyrs' prayer calendars) for 2018. [Yes, our kids get gifts from us throughout the year as does Jesus, but we all know that birthdays are special for the birthday person ;)]

Christmas day activities and traditions: This has quickly become my favorite day of the year! First, we do all of our cooking for today the night before, so we can all sleep in some. Then, Ricky leaves to pick up our guests for our big meal and party (we pray much beforehand who to invite -- poor, needy, lonely...). After we eat and play, we sing Happy Birthday and have the cake before taking our guests home. Then, we went outside to talk about five gifts from God to give him thanksgiving. Afterwards, we did our annual scavenger hunt. This was so much fun again! This year we had seven clues, and the theme was Gifts we can give to God -- hearts/feelings, minds/thoughts, bodies/strength/clothes, dreams/hopes/plans/prayers, thanks, time, and money. There are more, those are just the ones we did. We finished the evening off playing games and eating leftovers:) And then we transitioned into picking out gifts to give Jesus. It was a great second Christmas-at-home doing what we wanted and look forward to next year!

Hope you had CHRISTmas joy in your celebrations and preparation for the coming of the King!

Merry CHRISTmas!

2017

“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in My name welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me does not welcome Me but the One who sent Me.”

Mark 9:37 

May Jesus be welcomed!

Ricky, Aidan, Aolani (almost 8), Micaiah (6), and Raphael (b. 10/25/17) DiMartino

Top fave posts of 2017:
Raphael's Birth Story
Raphael's Birth & Name Announcement
Help Enduring Suffering
The Jewel {poem}
Marriage in Light of Eternity {video}

Bundles of Joy

• First week of November: We mostly laid low at home with my mom still visiting. The older kids went to their friends' house for a play date and again for small group, and Ricky went to a church outreach meeting.
• Second week of November: Another chill week. My mom went home; we had our pastor over for lunch one day; our church body begins bringing us dinner meals for the next six weeks (!); and, the older kids went on another play date while we took Raphael to the Chiropractor (no crying or waking, just rested on Ricky’s chest while being adjusted:).
• Third week of November: More homebodiness, just friends coming over to visit and see the cute baby;)
• Fourth week of November: We were able to go to my parents’ farm for a few days over Thanksgiving! Raphael is a great car rider; the kids got to play with their cousins; Raphael got to meet his aunt and uncle; and, I crashed and rested (life with a newborn)!
• Aolani is so motherly and helps me take care of the baby. Her maternal instincts are sweet, and she feels important and big (which she is)! She is also becoming quite independent and strong-willed (disagrees and argues with me a lot :( ).
• Micaiah's mishaps (actually Mommy’s mishap, a humbling tale): One day Aolani came to me to inform me (tattletale) that Micaiah’s giving jar was empty even though his spending jar was full of money (since they haven’t tithed recently, he must have taken the money from giving and put it in the toy jar -- see money jars). I turned to him and astonishingly say, "You stole money from God?!” Ignoring his firm denial and shaking my head in disapproval, I continued, "Even if Mommy didn’t see or find out, God sees and knows everything!” Then he burst into tears and kept saying that I wouldn’t listen to him. I assured him I would listen. He reminded me that he had given me all the money from that jar when we collected money to buy Bibles for Buddhists. That’s right! I felt the heavy weight of guilt. Micaiah is so quick to give, generous and tenderhearted! After apologizing for wrongly assuming and falsely accusing, I gave him a big hug and reminded him that God loves a cheerful giver :) 
• Raphael did a lot of growing this month! He lost his umbilical cord on his eighth day, gained three pounds, turns and moves a lot when lying down, grew out of newborn diapers, is practicing neck control, and did his first laughs for Ricky and I separately over Thanksgiving break (melt my heart!). He is our little noisemaker, making all those sweet, precious newborn grunts and squeaks. During the first month of life, I focus on breastfeeding and establishing a strong nursing relationship since it will hopefully last at least two years. So we spent a lot of time in the recliner just resting and nursing and growing. My milk came in on day three, and I went straight into oversupply, which I anticipated since I was only nursing one child (I had it with Aolani). To combat this issue, I nurse on just one side for two subsequent feedings before switching to the other side. This way my body gets the message to slow down milk production. This month I am somewhat working on sleep and next month’s focus will be on trying to figure out a routine that will work well with our family’s life. Right now, Raphael is still sleeping in our bed at night, probably until he can sleep at least six hours straight before waking to nurse. (Ricky is extremely hard to wake, even with alarms, water, hitting, my shouting, baby wailing... So when the baby needs to eat at night, I need to be able to reach him because Ricky will sleep through it all!)
• I have written lyrics to well-known lullabies for the kids (i.e., one, two, three), and here is Raphael’s (to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star):

Twinkle, twinkle little star Raphael is who you are Raphael, it’s God who heals Trust in Him, your heart He stills Don’t you know He loves you so Yes I know He loves you so Twinkle, twinkle little star Raphael is who you are 

• I put in every shot of Raphael during this shoot (by my mom), even if it's not great, because I treasure each expression! He's 1-month old here.
  

• Almost all of these pictures include Raphael; we all just can't get enough of cute, little, chubby squish!
• Verses I memorized: Matthew 5:45-48