Andrew invited me to participate in his holiday event, providing the theme of family and kids. My mind immediately ran to the myriad of experiences a mother of four has after spending 20+ years “holiday-ing” with her kids. Josh’s first Christmas, when a roomful of twenty adults sat looking at each other from six a.m. until noon because the one-year-old was still asleep and a mother never wakes a sleeping baby. The year PJ (3) and the cat curled up in matching boxes and feel asleep under the tree. The first year Asia (18) brought a male guest to Christmas morning and my husband felt the immediate need to clean all his guns at the kitchen table. The year the dog got tangled in …

Hello everyone! I am so excited to be here today and thanks so much to Andy for inviting me over to his blog! My name is Jay and I run a m/m romance review blog called Joyfully Jay.  In my real life I am a suburban mom of two wonderful girls, ages 10 and 12 1/2.  Yes, we are right on the cusp of having teenagers, and let me tell you, the view is scary from over here!  But they really are fabulous and my husband and I are so lucky to have them in our lives. Andy asked me to share my thoughts about kids and the holidays with you guys.  I love the traditions of the holidays, the …

Hard to believe we made our third visit to Santa. This year she at least was able to say she was a good girl and she wanted books and puzzles for Christmas.  Santa was  – as he was the past two years – really great with her, though we did have a bit of trouble getting her to smile.  Here are all three.   Then when we got home, someone decided they wanted to audition for the Voice, so we made a video. She’s made quiet and improvement since she first tried to sing this about four months ago.

So I’m a few days late with the schedule. I meant to do it sooner, but there never seems to be enough time this during the holiday season.  That made me a bit behind in confirming with everyone their dates, so I held off until now. The theme of the Event is Parents and Christmas. The participants are all all parents – or soon to be parents, some are even grandparents. Those posting are practice different religions, live in many different countries, and run the gamut of orientations. The goal was a diverse group so I could get a wide variety of posts. I think I’ve achieved that mix. Here is the list of everyone participating and the days their …

Memories of a Christmas Past by Lena Grey The Christmas season is a magical time of year, when we allow ourselves to suspend our disbelief and let the spirit of our childhoods reign. It presents us with an excellent opportunity to put aside our differences and come together in peace and harmony.

A PAGAN CHRISTMAS Well, actually it’s called Yule and should really be celebrated on the 21st December, the Winter Solstice. However, I didn’t think it was fair on children to ask them to celebrate their festivities four days early. Children, being the ‘live in the now’ creatures they are, could easily have all their presents on the 21st and still get upset because they don’t have Christmas Presents on the 25th. So, we moved Yule on by a few days. We still celebrate with a ritual on 21st, but so many of the rituals and symbolism have been ‘stolen’ by Christmas it’s really all blurred into one.

Deck the halls with boots of lollies! On this wonderful 6th of December, children (and adults) awake to find the shoe they left out their door overnight full of goodies from Nikolaus. Similar to perhaps how a stocking overhanging a fireplace might be filled, in Germany—where my family and I celebrate Christmas—this happens earlier in the month.

Traditions… then and now One of my favorite traditions has been trimming the tree. *laugh* Okay, yes, it’s a pain getting the tree down from the attic, setting it, and so on. When the kids were young, I’d haul it down a day or so after Thanksgiving. They were off for Thanksgiving break and that Saturday we’d get started on the tree. That was *always* the first thing done. And man, I had boxes of ornaments. Ornaments from the very old, the very expensive… to things made by the kids in school. Our tradition was the kids helped me dress the tree—it was naked when it came from the attic, so it was up to us to dress it. That’s …

I’d like to thank Andrew not simply for inviting me to be part of his holiday blogging extravaganza, but mostly for reminding me of one of my most significant holidays ever. It was Thanksgiving, 2002. I spent it with my husband, three-year-old daughter and mother-in-law in Hong Kong, where we went for a week before traveling on to mainland China to adopt our younger daughter. 2002 was actually my second holiday season in Hong Kong, and my husband and his mother had been there before, when his brother was living and working there. He and his girlfriend actually lived on an island about an hour outside of Hong Kong by ferry, called Cheung Chau (you can see it from Lantau …

They say Christmas is for kids – of course that ignores the religious implication, but few would deny that Christmas is made for kids. The qualifier should be – kids 3 and older. Clearly the first Christmas with ‘lil q she had no idea what was going on around her. I, on the other hand, totally understood the significance. I was fortunate enough to be able to take 16 weeks of paid leave under the family medical act to help raise my new daughter. It was in itself the best holiday gift to be able to spend the time with her. When it was time to do holiday shopping, ‘lil q was just starting to face forward in the baby …