Traditions

I've been thinking a lot about traditions. I want to have some for Andrew as he grows up. It is a difficult thing to do during the holidays for two reasons. We don't have a traditional family and we travel on most holidays. I love that he will wake up on most Christmases at his grandparents' house and will have the memory of sharing that morning with them. But I also want him to have some traditions that are just ours. I know that he is still too young to remember the things we do this year, but it has been on my mind and I would like to establish some now.

One of them will be Spirit Village. It is held every year at my church and it is wonderful. The entire fellowship hall is set up and decorated like a Dickens Christmas village. They even have live animals (including a very large, very yellow python that will NOT be one of our traditions). I took Andrew last year and it was also the first time that he saw snow. We went again today and he had a great time (except for when I kept dragging him by the arm because the guy with the big yellow snake was coming within 50ft of us). The focus of the day is to buy gifts that you can 'give' your friends and family at Christmas. The gifts consist of monetary donations to mission projects around the world. They send out a large catalog ahead of time and you can 'shop' for gifts you think your friends and family would like. I can't tell you what I bought because it would ruin the surprise for some people who read this blog but I always try to buy things according to what I think the person getting the gift would have chosen.

I did not take many pictures of the scenery this year because I took so many of them last year and it is the same every year. You can see those in my post from last year by clicking here.



I love how excited he is by animals...


and how gentle and kind he is with them.








The look on his face here is hilarious.


These sheep were chocolate brown. I loved them! They look just like the ones from my Nativity set that Andrew keeps stealing and putting in his pockets.


Some ducks and the back end of a pot-bellied pig.


An adorable little hedge-hog.


We got several comments about Andrew's climbing ability. This was not the highest rung that he was on today.


This was:


He was fascinated with the monkey. I wonder why?