Five Days Till Christmas??

I am having a very hard time realizing that Christmas is a short 5 days away. I am not sure if it is the lack of snow (though I hear that should change tomorrow) or just too much other “stuff” going on right now.

I do know that even if I can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that Christmas is almost here….it will most surely arrive on time. Soooooo…..I had best be picking up the pace and getting ready for all the gatherings that will be happening.

Some things are just a tradition around our house. Things like buffalo and pig cut out cookies (see previous post) and the way I tag our wrapped Christmas presents.

Ever since our boys were small I have tagged the presents….I have just not tagged them with their names! When our children were young they had trouble keeping their hands off the presents that they knew were theirs. (How many parents can relate to that problem?) To correct that issue I started out using numbers instead of their names.

In later years I moved on from using numbers; to using my card making rubber stamps. I would make a bunch of tags and stamp them with a variety of images. The images were everything from Christmas trees to penguins, to fish to fruit etc.

To make sure I knew who went with what image I had the “Notebook”. In it were the stamped images that were on the tags of the packages. Each image had a name by it and what was in the package. I made sure to hide that notebook in a good place ….. but not to good that I couldn’t find it!

This year I tried a different type of tag…..I used my new Cricut Explore One to cut out tags. The tags are not my own creation. I found them on Pinterest.  (If you want to make the set of six tags just follow the Pinterest link and they are a free downloadable svg file.) I also don’t make a cent promoting Cricut or Pinterest….I just want to share my sources because I thought they were really neat. And yes….I realize that I only pictured five of the six tags…The last one was already stuck on a package!

I thought that when my sons grew up and got married I would probably start putting the names on packages. When I mentioned doing that some years back I was told, “No!  this is our tradition.”  I would love to know what some of your traditions are. I have a feeling that everyone has something totally unique to their families.

Tags, with or without names, seem like such a small thing at Christmas time and yet they have become part of the fabric of our holiday. Sometimes it is the small things that people remember the most. For me that is a good reminder to do those small things.

In all the busyness of the season, the shopping, the wrapping of gifts, the planning of parties, the food preparation the small things remind me to slow down and take a step back. To step back and realize that all that stuff could go away and the reason for the season would remain…..Faith, Hope and Love….and the birth of the Child who makes a difference. Blessings to you all as Christmas draws near!

Three things will last forever–faith, hope, and love
–and the greatest of these is love.
New Living Translation