Since we have brought the girls home, we have celebrated with an Ethiopian meal, Coca-Cola and a small gift for each girl.  I try and make the family meal the center of the celebration, not the gifts.

I bought the injera earlier in the week, but made the Dora Alechea (mild chicken stew), red lentils and yellow split peas on my own. I’m not one for cooking, but I enjoy making this for the family. I also try and burn traditional incense to make the kitchen smell a bit like an Ethiopian kitchen might. Mita and Enu love the smell and it has brought back memories for them.

Check out my pics of the food!

Happy 2012!!!

So, I was thinking about doing a New Years post and thought I would look back to last year’s posts to see if I had written one.  Turns out, I did write one! Here it is.  If you had the interest in clicking you would have read that my goal for 2011 was to become more organized.  Ouch. I had kinda forgotten about that somewhere in March. Oops.

So did I become more organized?  I think so.  Am I so much more organized that others have noticed…probably not!  A goal that needs to be continued it seems.

As 2012 approaches I have a few things I want to accomplish.

1)  I want to make more reading goals, as I completed my three reading goals for 2011 and was very pleased with myself for that.  This will be another post, once I figure out exactly what my goals are.

2)  I want to figure out my camera better. (FireMom I need you on this one, maybe I can pay you in coffee beans?!)

3)  Once Enu is settles in school I want to work more. I love my job.

4)  Oh yeah. I need to become a domestic goddess.  Hmmm. I won’t even pretend that is possible!

Any special goals for 2012 for you and yours?  Have a great New Years and I hope that 2012 brings many blessings to you and your family!

Every year I put out lots and lots of Christmas books and DVD’s/VHS movies. They are put around the tree and on top of the TV and around our den. It used to be contained to a small basket, but in the years my collection has expanded.  This year I sadly noted that many of the books we have outgrown.  Part of me wants to keep all the books forever, but I have to be realistic of my space.

After reading Firemom’s book advent activities I have decided to let the girls wrap up some of our books when we pack up the Christmas decorations this year.  I will buy some more books in after Christmas sales to make it a pile of 24 books and we will give it to my niece next Thanksgiving so she can have an advent of books next year.

A few books I will keep forever.  Here are a couple of them that I just cannot bear to give away:

You Are My Miracle By Maryann K. Cusimano Love

Little Drummer Boy  By Ezra Jack Keats

If You  Take A Mouse To The Movies By Laura Numeroff

There are a few more of course by those are a few off the top of my head.

I thought I would pass on my Christmas idea to help other mom’s who also have families outgrowing the good old traditions.  If you have any ideas about older kids and traditions please share them!

(Disclosure: I was not asked to write about these books, nor are they affiliate links.)

I am blessed in that Christmas has always been  a special time, not one of loneliness or regret.  Of course, I have always been aware that the holidays can be hard for those who are grieving a loss of a loved one or for people who have no one to celebrate with. Being aware of and actually living through a holiday season grieving are acutely different.

While I cannot claim to know the loss that my Ethiopian girls have suffered, I  have lived with them for several holiday seasons now. We are about to celebrate our fourth Christmas as a family.  The first Christmas in 2008 wasn’t too rough as the girls as I kept a low profile Christmas and skipped a lot of the events that we normally do, although I did notice Mita was agitated at our Ethiopian Christmas celebration (January 7th or Epiphany) and even left our meal prematurely.

The past two Christmas seasons have seen an escalation in emotions, misbehaviors and outbursts.  Sadness that they will not be celebrating Christmas with their father is evident as they make Christmas cards for him and help make his annual photo book.

It doesn’t matter that in Ethiopia they may have received one outfit and some popcorn for Christmas, that Santa would skip over their house. It doesn’t matter that they wouldn’t have a tree with an iPod or American Girl doll underneath.  He is not with them and that is what matters.

Remember that no matter how wonderful your adoption has been, there is still a loss there that needs to be recognized.  December is a month for families and when your family has been fractured it cannot be ignored.

I encourage us all to remember those who have suffered a loss this year or in years passed.  Let us be gentle with them in our celebrations.

My brother and I started a tradition of waking up in the middle of the night and pulling everything out of our stockings and seeing our big gift from Santa. Santa always brought the big gift.  A big plus for in our house is that Santa did not wrap his gifts! That is how we knew the gift was from Santa.

What I didn’t realize was that Santa wrapped other kids’ gifts.When I found this out I was no longer a believer, so it didn’t matter.

Then I got married and had kids.  Hubby’s Santa did wrap!  He wrapped the big gift and the stocking stuffers!  It was a time for copermise and Hubby’s side won!

Santa wraps at our house now. I help him get special gift wrap so that his are different looking than ours…..this parenting stuff is so complicated!

There is my five minutes of Stream Of Consciousness about Santa Wrapping!  Life changing I know! Does your Santa wrap?

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Link up your post at AllThingsFadra.com
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Directed by Nicole Kidman and staring Selena Gomez Monte Carlo is fun and age appropriate for those who are not yet teenagers but like to act as if they are (all my girls at this point!).

I want to thank Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment for giving me a copy of this movie last September and for giving a new copy away to my local Secret Santa program!  I believe in the power of giving and am thankful for all that I have from the little things to the big things.  I encourage everyone to find a local organization and give what you can, even if it doesn’t seem like a lot.  Every bit helps!

Follow Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on Twitter @FoxHomeEnt for more info on great DVDs!

We are a Christian family. We celebrate Christmas as a time to remember Christ and in remembering Christ we give gifts to each-other and those less unfortunate than us.  I told the girls that Jesus got three gifts (Gold, frankincense and Myrrh) and that they would get three as well.  I quickly amended this pledge to exclude stocking stuffers, I just soooo enjoy the little fun things that the stockings have.

I have found that this was easier to live by now than when they were younger.  Toys are so much fun and are so exciting I couldn’t help but want to buy more. Now the kids want money or an expensive iPod. These things are just so boring to wrap and they are small.  I am proud that Meg and Mita are saving money for and iPad and a iPod touch… I  just like to wrap!

I’m still happy with my decision. I don’t go into debt at Christmas time, my kids are not overwhelmed with stuff and Christmas is about more than presents.  In fact in the last few years I have seen the girls grow in their giving and they really enjoy shopping for each-other, making things re-purposing items they no longer use.

I still miss the days of big toys to wrap though!

Do you have a tradition to try to keep the stuff down in your house and to celebrate what Christmas means to you?

Elle in her Christmas dress complete with tennis shoes, watching the Nutcracker!

Every once in a while I will write a letter to myself giving me advice on how to handle things differently next time the event comes around.

Christmas is a good time for reflection and I think I  have finally got this Christmas my four children down. I stress the MY part, because every family is different and my hat goes off to those families who can pull of all the fun traditions I used to try to do.

This  year I did not make a plan for getting an awesome themed Christmas pictures for the Christmas cards. I used to try to get the perfect picture, no more.

This  year I not only didn’t get the girls matching/coordinating Christmas outfits, I did not get any Christmas outfits at all. Elle has a new dress that I bought on sale last January and she is wearing it for her Christmas play, which happens to fall on her 7th birthday! One of the girls asked about her Christmas outfit. I told her I didn’t get them, because they won’t wear them without a lot of drama. Simple.

This year I will not try to yet again get a family picture. If it happens great, but I won’t even dream of it.  It is just fact that we are an adoptive family of older kids with attachment/trauma issues.  If a family portrait is a power struggle, we just won’t have one. Again.  Maybe someday.

This year I am not trying to get all the girls to experience what I think they should experience or what tradition dictates. I took Meg and Elle to see the Nutcracker because they had good friends dancing in it and the other two hated going the last time. I plan on taking only Elle to Breakfast with Santa. I am taking Mita out on a mommy-daughter day and since I am homeschooling Enu, we are still getting a lot of one on one time.

This year I have so far been more relaxed than I have in years. I’m enjoying myself.  Meg has asked to take over the Advent quilt this year. I gave her several things I wanted in it and she is doing the rest.  The younger generation carries on!

Dear Mandy,

By golly, I think you finally got it!

Love,

Mandy