.jpg)
here is a link to a video on youtube from a friend; this is what got me thinking about all of this today...
our neighbors from boise (chad & amy houck...we have the links to their blogs to the right) are renting out their beautiful house, bought an RV, & he quit his job to start a non-profit to benefit ghana, africa. they are driving around the u.s. gathering support for their non profit that helps to drill wells & such (please read their blogs to get a better idea!). anyway, they sent us an email about a month ago asking for support for a well being drilled beside a school that had also been built. wes & i talked to each other about it & agreed to send money but then totally forgot about it. bummer. it's easy to tell ourselves 'we have a lot going on right now, it's okay to forget...' but it seems that we just keep saying that. i think we need to give ourselves a kick in the pants & become a bit more proactive about things (like giving money when possible, giving our time & prayers when not possible). i guess i just don't want to take advantage of this posh life that we have (compared to some of the rest of the world)...we are very blessed with two healthy daughters, a great job for wes, a house near wes' office (so he can come home at lunch to hang out with everyone a bit more), family who enjoy our company...i'm just feeling compelled to share the love, so to speak...so we should get off our duffs & do something about it! we'll see how it goes...anyway, does anyone have a holiday family tradition they'd like to share? the gerbicks are shopping for some more... as for my family as a child & teenager, on christmas morning we had the tradition of my dad reading from one of the gospels the story of jesus' birth...it was DREADED by the kids. especially when we read the long one (from luke?) & we sat there looking at all the gifts, giddy, waiting, waiting, waiting. what's funny now is that last year (or was it the year before?), my dad forgot to read & started to pass out gifts & i think all of the 3 gerwig kids said 'what about reading the story?!' apparently it stuck. BTW: i think we will be stealing that one from my family...(& also we will tell our girls that santa claus is not real, but something fun to imagine & pretend....i do not feel the least bit scarred from my childhood knowing that santa wasn't real).
AND...drum roll please... amelia slept through the night last night! HOLY CRAP! she slept from 7:55 until 6:30! i'm not that superstitious, but i know since i posted this, she will most likely wake up 4 times tonight. but still! addy didn't sleep through the night until month 8, so this is just totally unexpected & wonderful. & if this does happen to continue, yes, teething will screw it all up again, but we'll take what we can get when it comes to sleep. yea! yea! hip hip hooray!
4 comments:
Great news about sleeping through the night, (I hope it is a new trend!). I liked your post, it is so easy to get caught up in the hoopla of the holidays and forget what it is really about. I was thinking of taking Audrey shopping for a needy child every year and having her choose the toys, and then go with me to deliver it to our chosen charity. As for traditions, one of my favorites is getting hot chocolate and going for a drive at night with Christmas music playing to look at Christmas lights. So fun!
Something we are going to start this year is having a Christmas Journal for the boys. Aaron and I will write something in the journal for the boys to read before they open their presents. It's basicly a little letter to them.
we are trying to emphasize that christmas is about blessing others and that if somewhere in there we are blessed to (for if you bless someone you are blessed, but you know what im saying -- GIFTS!) then that is a secondary bonus. it's just a small way we want to communicate the idea of jubilee. so we are going to involve our kids in toy drives, etc. in an effort to get their minds thinking about giving and not getting. we are also majorly downsizing the exchange between us as far as gifts go and instead diverting that money to giving more to others in need. have you ever heard of a jesse tree? it's a catholic tradition of observing advent. im toying around with the idea of adopting this idea. unsure though. we do not do santa, never will.
I love this post...even with a 6-month old, we have been thinking about this. My favorite thing growing up was not the gifts, but the going and cutting down the tree and decorating it as a family.
Post a Comment