Christmas is something I have always had a love/hate relationship with. On one hand I love the traditions from around the world, the gathering, the nostalgia, the food, and most of the time the family. The things I don’t like include the shopping, the commercialism, the pervasive annoying bad christmas music, and the feeling that I have never QUITE got enough done. Often I get very worried about the traditional turkey dinner, what the tree looks like (is it good enough?), did I do Christmas RIGHT?

This year is kind of different. Some of our traditions are going out the window! We are not…wait for it…having a turkey! We have ALWAYS had turkey at Christmas. This year, with so few people at the dinner table (3 or 4) we are going to dig into a wonderful home grown chicken instead. Not to mention some of our own potatoes, carrots, and kale too.

FINALLY, we are not buying presents…or too many presents anyway. All the grown-ups decided that we will give far fewer gifts. Tim’s family is really good at this, mine, not so much. We love to buy each other presents! We don’t try and out compete each other or anything, we genuinely enjoy the joy the other person gets when reviving a gift. BUT it is just too much, so we have cut WAAAY back.

Something else that is different this year is our decorating. Usually we pull out our tired old decorations, put the up the same way we have year after year, and leave it until twelfth night. This year we got new lights, cut conifer boughs and dogwood branches, and created some outdoor decorations as well. They are simple, but we think they look nice with their red bows and coloured balls.

Our caller tree sparkles in front of the window so the sheep can chickens can see it too. We like the thought of them being able to see the coloured lights at night.

Christmas day has become an animal day, as we are so grateful for them. We will sing Christmas carols to our animals during chores ( I wonder if there are chickens in the Christmas story?), then go to the animal shelter, clean litter boxes, and sing some more to the animals. Then, come home and take our dog for a walk. Can you think of a better Christmas morning then that!?!

SO, we have shaken things up and changed them around a bit just enough to breathe new life into our holidays. All sorts of strokes for all sorts of folks right:)

 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!