Ordinarily, I have a great disdain for allowing Christmas music, celebrations, and certainly decorating into my life before we cut the turkey on Thanksgiving, so you can imagine that when Ashley proposed that we have our Christmas kickoff the weekend before Thanksgiving, I was horror stricken. Yet, slowly she chipped away at my resolve (and worse, used logic against me, since we have a number of commitments that made my timeline impractical)… and eventually I caved. As it turns out, I am delighted that she won me over!
The first step of a Christmas kickoff weekend is to unpack the boxes and remind yourselves of what you have.
Conveniently, the Towne Centre also decided that it was a good weekend to kick off Christmas. We enjoyed spending time at the annual tree lighting, hanging out with friends, listening to the East Cooper Baptist Orchestra, watching the tree lighting and the ensuing laser show, and even catching a glimpse of Santa.
After seeing that tree, I was extra motivated to string working lights over all the dead built-in lights on our Christmas tree, so that we could hand decorations. This was our first year that the kiddos got really excited about decorating the tree — even Isobel found her favorite spot on the tree where she hung every ornament she picked up.
One of the key rules of decorating your Christmas tree is that you must have a solid Christmas soundtrack. As a result, we like to add a new Christmas album to our collection each year or two. This year, we were excited that Slugs & Bugs just released a new scripture-based Christmas album, Sing the Bible — Family Christmas. If you haven’t heard it, I highly recommend you go have a listen and then pick up a copy.
Last, but certainly not least, we got to have an early birthday kick-off for Isobel with Mimi and Papa over the weekend.
Have a happy Thanksgiving and enjoy your Christmas kickoff, whenever it may be!
Team Grooms 