lights – stevecorn.com

Everyone should experience these 50 things sometime in their lives during the Christmas season. I have already experienced some of these, but some are things I hope to experience.

50 Things to do during Christmas:

1. “A Christmas Story” marathon.

2. Sit in Santa’s lap for a picture. It still counts if you cry your way through it.

3. Adopt a child (or 2 or 3) from the “Angel Tree” at church, buy gifts for him/her, and deliver them.

4. Cut down your own Christmas tree.

5. Decorate a Christmas tree with ornaments that have memories attached to them. Never waste your time making the tree look pretty or having matching ornaments.

6. Sleep way more than you should.

7. Cut and decorate Christmas cookies with colored icing, sprinkles, red hots, etc. (Or just eat the ones your Aunt makes.)

8. Build a fire in the fireplace (yes, even if it’s 80 degrees outside) and read the Christmas story as a family.

9. Let the kids unwrap one gift on Christmas Eve, but make sure they get that same gift every year so there’s still no surprise.

10. Be intentional about spending some time reflecting on Emmanuel (God with Us) – Jesus. Here’s something I wrote about Him. Consistently Emmanuel

11. Participate in a live nativity.

12. Spend at least 100 hours placing exactly 6 colored stars on tree cookies made of green tasteless dough which you will sell to the nearest Christmas Tree Farm to make $$ for Christmas gifts. (This was for you, Laurie.)

13. Go Christmas caroling.

14. Be surprised when someone kisses you under the mistletoe.

15. Attend a candlelight service with your family.

16. Incur some kind of injury Christmas afternoon as you play with your new toy. (“You’ll shoot your eye out kid.”)

17. Give a memory to someone. Experience something together.

18. Unwrap “the ball” with your family. (It’s a tape ball with small gifts wrapped inside. The ball gets passed around a circle and you get to keep what you unwrap. You keep unwrapping until the next person rolls a 6 with a pair of dice.)

19. Watch the greatest Christmas movie ever made: Die Hard

20. Leave cookies out for Santa. Eat cookies left for Santa.

21. Dress up as Santa Claus so that a child believes at least one more year.

22. Instead of buying gifts, give $$ to your favorite charity.

23. Go to the trouble (in spite of the traffic) to take the kids to see some spectacular Christmas lights.

24. Go on a hayride.

25. Obtain an injury and get frustrated as you ignore the instructions and attempt to assemble the things Santa left your kids.

26. Take family pictures.

27. Re-gift. Or use gift cards to buy gifts for others.

28. Watch the eyes of someone you love as they open a special gift.

My dad played football with us every year at Grandma’s house.

29. Play football in the yard with the whole family.

30. Put pumpkin pie on your shoe, pretend you came in from outside, and then when someone notices the “poop,” wipe it off with your finger and eat it. (My brother’s idea – and it was hilarious! My grandma is the one who noticed.)

31. Use an advent calendar where you get to do something (Ex: eat a chocolate, hang an ornament, etc.) each day leading up to Christmas.

32. Arrange for your children to play “Jesus” in some sort of local Christmas production. Bonus if you are Mary and Joseph.

33. See Andrew Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb of God” Christmas production (or at least listen to the recording each year.)

34. Wake up way too early as your kids anticipation gets the best of them.

35. Secretly open a gift, seal it back up, and then act surprised on Christmas morning.

36. Display a nativity scene in your house and teach your children about the characters. (One year, my 3-yr-old son Kasen, told the Christmas story with our nativity. http://stevecorn.com/2010/12/kasen-tells-the-christmas-story/ )

37. Watch the “Nativity Story” movie.

38. Use baby powder to leave footprints from the fireplace to the place where Santa left the gifts. (But make sure you make the footprints go back too – my parents missed that last part.)

39. Count the number of Jesus figurines you can find at grandma’s house.

40. Ask your grandma/grandpa about how they remember spending Christmas as kids.

41. Eat monkey bread.

42. Enjoy a “White Christmas” and do some sledding, have a snowball fight, or build a snowman.

My dad skied with leukemia! December 1996

43. Take the family skiing over the Christmas break.

44. Take the family to an old barn and read the Christmas story there among the animals and smells.

45. Bluebell Peppermint Ice Cream – it’s only made during the holidays.

46. Search the sky for Santa’s sleigh.

47. Get stranded due to icy/closed roads in some random west Texas town on the way to a ski trip. End up having to sleep with the animals ’cause there is “no room at the inn.” (It was Quanah, TX and the people of First Baptist Church were very gracious with their gym. They even let traveling pets sleep there.) Here’s a post about this experience: No Room at the Inn

48. Drive all over the country trying to see all your relatives and in-laws on Christmas Day.

49. Snack on Homemade Chex Mix, peppermint bark, and peanut clusters.

50. Celebrate Emmanuel!!! (Jesus = Emmanuel = “God with Us”)

Things not to do:

1. Get so busy trying to do the things on this list that you forget #50.

Yeah – we’ve decided to do our nursery with a rainforest theme. We decided this before we knew if Kasen was gonna be a boy or a girl. The plan was that if it turned out to be a girl, we’d add butterflies and flowers, and if it was a boy we’d add monkeys and bugs. Anyway, we painted the room a really bright green pretty early on after we found out Miranda was pregnant. One of the youth (Montana) helped us get it painted. She did a GREAT job too – there’s only one problem – once we got it on the wall, we realized how bright it really was. Almost scary bright if you know what I mean. (By the way, the picture here doesn’t really show how bright it is – it’s so bright that you can see a green glow on the opposite white wall in the hallway.) Anyway, our hope was that when we started putting other things into the room, it would calm it down a bit. (Note: I really wanted bright colors instead of the typical pastel baby colors that are normally used.)

All this is to say that we worked a whole lot last week in cleaning things out of the closet so we could begin turning it into the nursery that we want. We got out all the stuff that people have already bought and moved a dresser into the room along with some fake trees that we bought. Anyway, things are coming together. My mom, sister, nephew, and niece came in town too and they helped us pick out some of the stuff. Mom even helped us figure out how to do some curtains (she’s gonna make them) and make them match some linens for the crib. (She’s gonna make those too)

Closets – so as I cleaned out the closet where Kasen’s nursery is gonna be, I found all kinds of fun stuff. That particular closet had become the “Steve’s old treasures” closet. I threw away quite a bit – a CD player, a DVD player, a set of speakers, and a few other things. But I also found some other stuff that brings back great memories for me.

My rock collection (yeah – you never knew I was one of “those” guys did you?)
Star Wars collector’s cards (I have the entire “Empire Strike Back” collection from when I was really little – I wonder what I could sell it for on E-bay?)
Sheet Music from Texas Wesleyan
School Yearbooks from Jr. High and High School
Old Bibles
My Tape collection – Yes – I’m that old – I remember when I bought my first CD and it was long after I started collecting music.

Anyway, all of these things bring back all kinds of memories for me. They have helped to make me who I am today in one way or another. Of course they don’t even come close to the influence that God or my family has had on me, but regardless these things still have still shaped me and the way that I think. As I cleaned out this closet, I wondered what kinds of things would be collected these for Kasen. I wonder what things we’ll dig out of his closet one day? I wonder what things will help to shape him? I prayed over that closet. I prayed that the things which end up in that space, will be things which we have intentionally placed there. Things which we chose for him ’cause we knew they’d have an impact on who he becomes. I pray that God will give us wisdom in choosing these things. I also pray that it won’t become a place where we just throw stuff that we really don’t care about. (‘Cause I think that has an impact too – it’s just not an intentional one – it’s not an impact that you chose for yourself.)

Wow – all this just over a nursery closet – what have I gotten myself into? I’m not ready for this whole parenting thing. If there’s this much to think about over a closet – how will I ever think through everything else in his life in the way that I should?

God – I need you! Please guide me. Show me your desires for Kasen. I know you will provide, but help me to be a good steward and make the right choices which would help him to grow up in such a way that he comes to know You. In a way that he would choose to serve You. Keep my bride safe and healthy as she carries Kasen for these next few months. Hold him close to Your heart and continue knitting him together in the way that You see fit. Create him inside Miranda. Mold him into a man who will honor You with his life, his words, his decisions, his everything. – by the way, mold me to be that way too – AMEN!

Tag: lights

Rainforests, Closets and Nurseries