NICU Survival Guide

Posted on January 13, 2014 by justeeni

Now that we’ve had two babies spend time in the NICU (124 days between the two of them), I wanted to take some time to write a little guide for ourselves and anyone else who may find themselves spending any extended amount of time with a baby in the NICU.

Preparations

If you have a clue ahead of time that baby might come early, my best advice is to plan ahead as much as possible. Cook and freeze meals, the more, the better. Make sure you have everything prepared for when Baby comes home. Errands are no fun once Baby is born. Figure out a workable routine, find out if you (or your spouse ) can work from home, and set up any extra help or baby sitters.

When Baby Comes

When Baby is born, the first thing to do is take a deep breath and process a little. A new baby changes everything, but a new baby in the NICU really changes everything. Once you’ve had a chance to take a deep breath (and decide on a name!), it’s time to make some phone calls. Announcing the birth of you child is exciting and when Baby comes early it’s even more of a surprise to those on the other end of the line. When I called my mom to tell her that Lydia was born (nine weeks early), she answered the phone by saying, “What do you know about puppies?”. My sister’s new puppy had just hurt her foot and my mom was trying to decide if she needed to take her to the vet. It was pretty comical (later).

If your baby is healthy and doing well, considering the circumstances (just trust what the doctors tell you) make sure you start off every announcement with that information. And halfway through, you should say it again. And then, before you hang up or say goodbye, say it again. Most people don’t know much about premature babies. I certainly didn’t. And they don’t know how critical of a condition your baby is actually in.

Believe the Doctors

The first question everyone has about a preemie is, “How long will we have to stay in the NICU?”. Doctors don’t like to give out false hope or unrealistic expectations, and their estimates are usually pretty good. For Lydia, they guessed 6-8 weeks, and she came home in 6. For Abby, they guessed 8-12 weeks, and she came home in 11 1/2.

However, both our girls started out fantastically. Every day we came in to hear praise about how well they were doing. We let it get to our heads and figured, surely, they would be home sooner than the original estimate. But the NICU is a roller coaster with unexpected turns, and both times the doctors were ultimately right. When I asked Dan what his best NICU advice was, it was to listen to the doctors estimate and don’t doubt it even if your baby seems to be doing amazing.

The First Week

The first week always feels like a whirlwind to us. First Baby comes, then there are announcements and visitors. You get to watch everyone’s reaction to your news and share your story. But after a couple of days, and you head home from the hospital, you have to get a plan together for how you’re going to handle your NICU stay. When Abby was born, both my parents and Dan’s parents came down at different times to watch Lydia and help around the house while I recovered. We would have completely fallen apart without that help.

During that week I sat down on Excel and figured out a tentative schedule that allowed us to visit Abby twice a day. We had to see if Dan could get in eight hours of work each day. It turns out he could, but only by working six days a week, getting up early, and going to bed late. If you do this, don’t forget to account for drive time. It was not uncommon for either Dan or I to spend over two hours in the car every day between driving to work, the hospital, home, and Lydia’s Babysitter’s.

Also during the first week, my parents took me grocery shopping. We stocked up on food for the next four weeks. I also got to ride around Meijer in one of their little electric scooters.

It’s OK to Cry

When I have babies in the NICU, I cry. I cry when they are admitted. I cry when they are not doing well. And I cry, even when they are. It’s sad. It’s hard. Your baby is supposed to be at home or in your belly. Not in an isolette. So it’s ok to cry.

I talked to a NICU mom once who had been in the NICU for two months already. They had a long road ahead and I empathized with her. She smiled and light-heartedly told me it was “sort of fun” to have a baby in the NICU. I hid my shock, but in my mid-NICU-super-emotional state, I felt like she had no heart.

I saw another Mom standing at her baby’s isolette, just watching her baby sleep. She was crying. I always liked that Mom after that, because it was so obvious how much she loved her baby boy.

Now, I’m all for having a good attitude and looking on the bright side. But you don’t have to pretend everything is perfect. It’s ok to cry.

Feeding Your Baby

Feeding times are the times you really want to be in the NICU. This is when you get to change your baby’s diaper, take your baby’s temperature, and, once your baby is stable enough, hold him or her. Once babies are over a week old, they usually have their feeding time every three hours.

Mothers of preemies aren’t able to nurse their babies so they have to express milk with a pump to be fed to their baby through a feeding tube. Lactations consultants recommend pumping every three hours, around the clock. I found that it works best to pump one hour after Baby’s feeding time, so that you can be involved with the hands-on part and not skip a pumping time. I also found that, once the milk supply is established and if it’s plentiful enough, it worked well to pump an hour early before bed and and hour late afterward so that you could have a couple of four hour stretches during the night.

Dan and I like to be at the hospital at least twice a day. This way we could each get a turn holding the Baby, and we could often be there for rounds. We got a morning update on how the night went and an evening update on how the day went.

What about Meals?

I’m sure a lot of NICU parents just eat out for every meal during their NICU stay. Dan and I avoided this for two reasons. One: it’s more expensive. Two: It’s much less healthy. And during the chaos of a NICU stay, eating junk won’t make things any better but it can make things a lot worse.

To handle this issue I made a meal plan of fast, easy-to-put-together meals for one week. We ate things like spaghetti, rice and beans, curry with frozen veggies and a store-bought sauce, veggies and hummus, and chili (which was the most time consuming meal and I wouldn’t choose that one again). And we repeated it every week until Abby came home. We would go grocery shopping once a month or so to buy the non-perishables. For the fresh produce, we asked a family from church to buy our groceries once a week and deliver them to us at church. They graciously continued to do this for the entire time Abby was in the NICU.

We also had one night a week when we ate Qdoba using gift cards given to us by loving friends from church. Those nights were my favorite. No preparation and no clean up.

Babysitters

With Abby we had another challenge of taking a care of a toddler while visiting the NICU. It worked best for us to bring Lydia once a day and leave her with a sitter during our second visit. Our favorite way to do this was to take her in the morning. In the evening we would eat dinner together and tuck her into bed. Then the baby sitters would come and stay while Lydia slept and we went to the hospital. We had such loving sitters who also tidied our messy living room, cleaned our dishes, and did our laundry. Those nights were also my favorites.

We found that it was very important to spend one-on-one time with Lydia. Snuggling, reading, tickling, talking, and playing were very important because she was getting much less Mommy and Daddy time than before. Sometimes she would scream from her bed at night, but we realized it wasn’t because she was being “bad”, it was because she was having trouble coping with our being away so much. So on those nights I would snuggle her extra until she was ready to sleep.

Get to Know Parents and Nurses

One of the most therapeutic things Dan and I chose to do was to make friends in the NICU. Time in the NICU passes slowly, but having another baby to cheer on helps a lot. Talking to other parents is encouraging, distracting, and helps pass the days. We had a lot of fun celebrating when our friends would move to an open crib or take their first bottle.

It also helps to make friends with the nurses. They are the people you’ll see the most and they are the ones caring for your (very) little bundle. It’s a lot better to have friends watch your baby than strangers. We also discovered that nurses which we didn’t care for at first, grew on us as we got to know them.

Once we transferred to Mott’s, we had trouble getting to know our nurses. It was just a less-friendly atmosphere. So we made an extra effort and brought them chocolate. That helped a lot. We also befriended Russell, the parking lot attendant.

Take Naps

The house is trashed. The sink is full of dishes. The laundry isn’t folded. Take a nap.

Someone just called your phone. A delivery man knocked on the door. You didn’t get to shower today. Take a nap anyway.

Some things just have to wait. Sleep isn’t one of them. Life in the NICU is hard enough without being exhausted. And, even with naps you’re still not going to get enough sleep, so take them!

Turn to Jesus

Even if you follow all of my NICU advice and think of fifteen other helpful things, having a baby in the NICU is still rough. Our greatest source of strength and hope rested in Jesus Christ. God is, after all, the Great Physician, and even if doctors fail, He never will. He knit together that Baby in Mom’s womb, and He can keep knitting that Baby together out of it.

Many times, I felt like everything was falling apart, and I didn’t even know what to pray. But I remember riding in the car, looking up at the night sky and silently crying out, “Help me! Help us! We need Your help!” Sometimes the change wasn’t instant, but He always came. He always helped.

Times when I felt so down I knew no one could offer me any comfort and He would. Through a song in the car, through a sermon at church, or through some unexpected blessing, He would carry us along.

The Roller Coaster Must End Sometime

There were times when I seriously thought Abby would never come home from the hospital. I thought she would just stay there forever, not finishing her bottles, not gaining weight, not keeping her temperature up. It’s silly, I know. But that’s how it felt.

Life in the NICU is a roller coaster ride. There are unexpected turns, and many ups and downs. But, the roller coaster will end. There will be a time when you will stop taking those car rides to the hospital every day. There will be a day when you have time to wash your own dishes and do your own grocery shopping. It’s true, what they say, that there are no kindergarteners in the NICU.

I hope this post will be useful for some. Or perhaps it can give others a glimpse into NICU life. And if not, thanks for bearing with me. If Dan and I have another baby I know that we will, at least, find this to be a great help.

Abby Update: 4 Months

Posted on January 10, 2014 by justeeni

Weight: 8 pounds, 9 ounces

Tomorrow Abby will be four months old. In the 82 days she spent in the NICU, she gained a total of 2 pounds, 13 ounces. In the 41 days she has spent at home she has gained 2 pounds, 13 ounces, exactly the same amount of weight in half the time. I thought that was pretty cool.

Abby is doing great. She eats about every three hours, but recently started sleeping about 5-6 hours at night. In the mornings she likes to sit with Dan as he works for an hour or two from home before going in to work (to avoid traffic).

During the day Abby mostly just sleeps. She started smiling a couple of weeks ago and is her smiliest early in the morning. During the evening she has another “awake time” but that one is usually not a very smiley time for her. She loves to be held as much as possible and worn in a wrap with Mommy during the day.

We have come up with a lot of nicknames for Abby. Aborigine, Aboriginal, Abbs, Munchkin 2, and the most recent: Abigus. Abigus originated when Dan put her swaddle on like toga one morning. Super cute.

See? Abby’s favorite way to play is when we poke her in the nose. Dan figured that one out, but I’m not sure how. If Abby’s in a decent mood, that’s the best way to get a smile out of her.

DIY: Homemade Herbal Tea Bags

Posted on January 8, 2014 by justeeni

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, the Taylor family decided to do all homemade gifts this year. For Dan’s Dad, we decided to make homegrown herbal tea. Way back in the spring time we bought a couple of herbs: peppermint and lemon balm. Despite our frequent moves and time in the hospital we managed to grow and harvest enough to make enough tea bags for one Christmas gift. If we’d been more diligent about harvesting our plants, or if we’d had better growing conditions, I’m sure we could have made a lot more.

The first step, once the plants were growing well, was to harvest the leaves periodically. I snipped off shoots and leaves with some kitchen scissors and set them on cookie sheets to air dry. You could also use a dehydrator, the oven, or hang them upside-down in brown paper bags, but I chose the lazy way.

By December I had a nice collection of dry leaves. It only took me one night to put them all together, although it was a late night. I made ten tea bags and it probably took a couple of hours. To make your own tea bags, you’ll need:

-herbs of your choice (I used lemon balm and peppermint)
-coffee filters
-scissors
-mortar and pestle (optional, totally unnecessary)
-sewing machine (also optional, but speeds up the process considerably)
-white thread
-card stock
-sewing needle
-scissors

I smashed my leaves up up in a mortar and pestle, but you could also just use your fingers.

Next I cut out my tea bags from coffee filters. I took apart a store-bought tea bag and cut my own to match, but you could just eyeball it. The exact dimensions aren’t extremely important.

Now fold your coffee filter in half, hotdog style, and line up your edges. Don’t flatten the fold down, because this is just a temporary fold. Sew with a 1/4 inch seam all the way across. Trim your thread.

Next you’ll open up the tea bag and fold it with the seam on top.

Flatten your seam open.

Was that too confusing? Here’s a picture that shows the process, top to bottom:

Now for the fun part! Fill your tea bag.

I found the best way to do this was to pour about half a tea spoon in to the tea bag, shake it down toward to bottom (pinch the end so none falls out), then pour the second half in. This way the tea is distributed throughout the tea bag, which is important because the next step is to fold your tea bag in half, hotdog style this time.

Looking good, right? Now, you’re going to fold down your corners and the top opening as seen here:

Back to the sewing machine, if you’re using one, for the tea bag string. Start in the center on top of the tea bag and sew down a few stitches. Don’t forget to backstitch here too. Then pause with your needle all the way down. Rotate the tea bag 180 degrees and sew back up.

I actually had a friend cut out and make my labels from card stock. These are the little tabs that hang off the end of the tea bags. I copied the store-bought tea bag method of attaching these but it was unnecessary. You can just tie them on, but for completeness I’ll show you what I did:

Tie a knot where you want the tag to rest. There’s my knot:

Cut a small notch in your tea bag tag.

Then thread one strand of the thread you just knotted into your needle. That’s only one strand, not both. Poke your needle carefully through a little bit below the notch you just made.

Pull all the way through until your knot is resting against the tab. Pull the other thread down through your notch and tie the two strands together. Trim your extra thread.

I put mine in a couple of little magnetic tins with their labels showing:

And there you have it. Homegrown, homemade tea bags, start to finish.

Bedtime Moments

Posted on January 6, 2014 by justeeni

I had no idea what a major transition it would be to move Lydia into a “big girl bed”. It’s not that she gets out of bed now. We were pleasantly surprised when Lydia learned her very first night that she can’t just get out of bed whenever she wants. No, the major transition is that Lydia is becoming a very big girl.

One of the perks to tucking Lydia in at night now is that one of us can lie down with her for a while. Usually Dan stays with her for a few songs on the cd we play for her as she falls asleep. A few nights ago, however, Dan told me I could stay with her.

“Mommy come? No room?” Lydia would ask and I said, “Nope, I’m going to lay down with you for a while.” She snuggled up next to me, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and grabbed onto my hair with her free hand. She asked me to put the “baseball blanket” on her and the “pink one” on myself. We sang and hummed some songs. Then we started chatting.

When Abby was in the hospital a couple of different people from church would stay at our house some nights while Lydia slept. Even though we tucked her in before we left, she still knew that we were leaving. By December she was no longer happy when Mommy and Daddy left. So after Abby came home Lydia would often ask at bedtime, “Mommy, Daddy stay?” with excitement in her voice. Sometimes she still does.

As we lay in her big girl bed she asked me again, “No leaving? Mommy stay?”.

“Yep, we’re staying here tonight. We’re not leaving.”

Lydia smiled a satisfied smile and stuck her thumb back in her mouth. “Mommy tired?”, she asked me.

“No, but Mommy has a headache.”

We had a short conversation about my headache and what I was planning to do after I left Lydia’s room. One of the things I told her was that Dan would probably rub my shoulders, because that helps my head stop hurting. I showed her what it meant to rub someone’s shoulders. Lydia listened intently, all the while holding my hair and sucking her thumb. When I’d finished, she reached up with both hands and started to rub my shoulders.

After I left the room I couldn’t help thinking that, when Lydia grows up and moves out, these are going to be the moments I miss the most.

Munchkin Update: 2 Years, 7 Months

Posted on January 3, 2014 by justeeni

Many times when Lydia was a baby, I prayed that she might grow to be a good helper to me, and lately I have seen the effects of that prayer. Lydia loves to help! One of her most common phrases is, “Help me?”, which really means “help you?” but we’re still getting the pronouns all figured out. Her very favorite way to help is when I wash dishes. She sits on the edge of the sink with her feet in the water and takes a sponge and washes away. The only unhelpful thing about it is that she doesn’t every want to stop! Even when there are no dishes to be done, she still asks, “help dishes?”.

Lydia also helps me unload the dishwasher (she hands me the silverware, one piece at a time as I put it away), fold laundry (she’s learning how to fold wash cloths), and vacuum (she pushes the on/off switch). She likes to hold Abby and run to get her clean clothes or put dirty clothes in the hamper after Abby spits up. When we tuck her in to her new “big girl bed” at night she often yells out the door as we leave, “help me Mommy?”.

Whatever Lydia does, she does it with all her heart. Often while she is playing alone I will hear loud yelling from her room. I rush in only to find her holding a book out in front of her and singing at the top of her lungs. She makes up her own songs, sings some that she knows, and mixes up the words of others. Some of our favorites are:

YES! Jesus loves me, the Bible made me so

and

Jesus, Jesus PRECIOUS Jesus, oh for God so loved the world

While it was on the radio, Lydia would ask for Christmas music every bed and nap time. Now that there’s no more Christmas music, we play a cd of children singing hymns and Bible songs. She knows each song from the beginning and will frequently burst into song at the dinner table or in the car.

When she’s playing, Lydia often gets so absorbed in whatever she’s doing that she doesn’t hear when we talk to her. She’ll come out of her room decked out with a toy tutu, purse, sunglasses, and toy keys and say “bye! see ya later! love you!”. She is all girl and loves accessories and sparkly things. She has two pretty Christmas dresses from Nana and wants to wear them every single day with her silver sparkly shoes. Because she loves to be pretty, Dan and I have been teaching her the two things that make her the most beautiful: to obey, and to smile.

Lately Lydia will occupy herself by removing every single tupperware container from the cupboard. Then she’ll climbs in the cupboard and yell “HIDING!”. If I am ever looking for something and I ask Lydia if she knows where it is, she either says, “hiding”, “all gone”, or “in the closet”.

Lydia keeps us smiling and laughing. Even when she gets in trouble it’s impossible to stay mad at her when she gives us a smile and a hug. Some of our very favorite things she’s been saying lately include “swabagee salsa” (spaghetti sauce), and “silly goose!”.

Every night as we tuck Lydia in to bed, she asks Mommy, Daddy, and Abigail for a hug and a kiss. Occasionally throughout the day she’ll run up to one of us, grab our legs and say, “I love you Mommy/Daddy!”. She is getting better at sitting quietly for Bible time and often repeats phrases that catch her attention after Dan says them. After doing this for a while she started to perk up every time she heard us say “Jesus Christ”. Then, one Sunday she caught our Pastor say “Jesus Christ” and she burst out, “Jesus Christ?!?” with excitement. It was as if she was thinking, “Hey, Pastor Paul talks about Jesus too!” Lydia also likes to answer his rhetorical questions loudly enough for the people around us (and sometimes the whole church) to hear. Perhaps we should teach her to say “Amen” whenever she gets excited so she’d be less distracting!

DIY: A Calendar for the New Year

Posted on January 1, 2014 by justeeni

Last Christmas Dan’s family decided to do all homemade gifts for 2013. For Dan’s Mom, Lydia (with some help from Mommy) made a “handmade” calendar with finger paint. She had a lot of fun doing it, and (although I wouldn’t recommend doing the whole thing in two days like we did) I would highly recommend this as a fun activity/craft/project for other little toddlers.

My original idea was to print off a homemade calendar and then do the painting and get it all bound at Kinkos for about $5. However, I caught a deal online for a $5 photo calendar. So I ordered a photo calendar but left all the photos off so I had a nice template for our painting.

Once our calendar arrived we took the pages apart and made our handprint paintings for each month. I didn’t take pictures of each month at the time, but I still have the links and pictures where we got our ideas.

Side Note: While you can make all these pictures just like the ones shown below, we had only purchased a finger paint set of four colors: red, yellow, green, and blue. With some adaptation to the colors in the pictures below and some half-hazardous mixing, we made it work. We left out any black or brown and we left the white portions unpainted since everything was on a white background.

Here are the pictures we used:

January – footprint penguin

freekidscrafts.com

For the penguin we just left the belly unpainted. To do so, I cut out a piece of paper in the shape I wanted and taped it to Lydia’s foot. Then, after she had paint on her foot, I removed the paper to leave the belly unpainted. For older kids, it would probably work better to tape the cut out paper to the calendar and remove it after the painting is done. For younger kiddos with less gross motor control, I recommend taping the paper to the foot.

February – handprint hearts

rootsandwingsco.blogspot.com

March – handprint four-leaf clover

meetthedubiens.com

April – handprint bunny

funhandprintart.blogspot.com

We did the bunny on the top left.

May – handprint Very Hungry Caterpillar

puppydogtails.blogspot.com

For the eyes we cut out two ovals and taped then on Lydia’s hand. Then we removed them once her hand was painted to leave the eyes unpainted. (similar to the penguin painting technique)

June – handprint goldfish

papercraftsforchildren.com

July – handprint American flag

ladiescn.com

We used a white gel pen to draw the stars. Alternatively you could use white paint or stick on some star stickers. If you want to get real fancy you could use the stickers the same way we used the belly cutout for the penguin, but that could get pretty tricky!

August – hand and footprint lobster

wifehatmomhat.com

September – handprint apple tree

lovingmynest.com

October – handprint fall tree

alittletipsy.com

November – handprint turkey

allkidsnetwork.com

December – handprint Christmas tree

piecesbypolly.com

Here’s Grandma’s reaction as she opened her calendar:

I think she liked it. Happy Painting!

2013 in Review

Posted on December 30, 2013 by justeeni

One of our favorite things to do at the end of each year is remind ourselves of some of the year’s highlights. Originally I intended to post the “Top 10 Blog Posts of 2013”. However, as I looked at what those posts were, I realized that most of them were the first Abby updates. Rather than include ten Abby updates, I’ve edited the list slightly to give a fair view of some of the favorite posts of the year:

10. Wasted Seasons

This is one of Dan’s favorite posts of the year.

9. Anniversary Date

A sweet story of a special date just days before Abby was born.

8. Suffering and the Sovereignty of God

Some thoughts on the lessons I’ve learned this year about suffering.

7. Ten Things I’ve Learned in Three Years of Marriage

An anniversary post.

6. Abby is Home!

This was the highlight of our year!

5. A Letter from Abby

Abby hijacked my blog one day and wrote this sweet letter of thanks.

4. Abigail’s Birth Story

A detailed account of the day Abby was born.

3. The Birth Story I’ll Never Tell

In this post, I shared why we will never have the birth story we had always hoped for, and how God helped us to accept the situation.

2. Abby Update: 66 Days Old

This is the day Abigail was transferred from St. Joe’s over to UofM Mott’s Children’s Hospital due to her excessive spit up and weight loss over the past several weeks.

1. Introducing Abigail Faith

Was anyone surprised? This was the first post published after Abby was born announcing her early birth at just 28 and a half weeks.

Our Christmas…a Poem

Posted on December 27, 2013 by justeeni

Christmas stockings, Christmas lights
Christmas music played at night,
Angel ornaments made by (great) Gramma
(no we don’t believe in Santa)

Dancing on our living room floor
Snow falls just outside the door
Taylors come to celebrate
And all the presents are homemade

Cookie cutter biscuits, those are neat
Hurry up, it’s time to eat!
Exchanging gifts is so much fun
We made something for everyone.

A calendar made with Lydia’s hands
so Grandma T can keep track of plans
Grandpa got some special tea
Grown and homemade by Mommy

Too soon it was time to go
So no one gets (too) stuck in the snow
Goodbyes are always very sad,
but there was more fun to be had.

Christmas morning is coming quick
The roads are getting pretty slick
Christmas eve we head out the door
because we need just one gift more.

Christmas morning comes at last
The night did not pass all to fast
Except for Mom, hope she’s not crabby
She was up with hungry Abby

Christmas pjs, pretty dresses
Lots of wrapping paper messes
Candles in the morning dark
The party is about to start!

Lydia can’t believe her eyes
A big girl bed! What a surprise!
Now Daddy reads some from God’s word
Stockings are second, presents are third

Abby’s gift: to be snuggled all day,
She wouldn’t have it any other way
Mommy got a pretty coat
Daddy got some workout clothes.

Christmas came and Christmas went
But the best gift was still heaven sent
Baby Jesus come to earth
We love to celebrate His birth!

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2013 by justeeni

Meaningful Traditions and Christmas Noise

Posted on December 23, 2013 by justeeni

On Saturday night I was sitting on the couch holding Abby and looking at our Christmas tree. I was remembering the message brought to the shepherds by the angels on that very first “Christmas” night (of course, I have to include this in the KJV. Thanks to Charlie Brown, it’s hard not to believe these were the exact words spoken by the angel, in English and everything.)

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

What triggered my thoughts about those angels and their message? We had just celebrated the Taylor family Christmas with Dan’s parents, brother and sister-in-law. In addition to their own gifts they had brought gifts from Dan’s grandparents. And every year Dan’s grandma makes each of her family members an ornament. A lot of the ones on our tree are angels, and those special ornaments had started my Christmas reminiscing.

In the background we had an “all-Christmas, all the time” radio station playing. And at that moment the song playing had nothing to do with shepherds, angels, or Baby Jesus. It was probably either a love song or something about Santa Claus. To me, right then, it just sounded like noise.

There is a remarkable difference between the deep and true story of Jesus birth, and special traditions that help us remember it, and the emptiness of Christless traditions.

A couple of years ago I became slightly obsessed with starting some Christmas traditions…meaningful traditions. I asked families in our church what they do, I asked Dan for ideas, I even searched online. And slowly we have started our own traditions.

We have our Christmas moose. There’s nothing especially Christmasy about him except that he promotes a lot of family fun and laughter.

We put up our tree and decorate as a family. And we take out the ornaments one-by-one and remember the story behind them. Most of our ornaments are those special one stitched by Dan’s grandma. I’ve also taken a page out of her book and combined it with an idea from my dad and cross-stitched an ornament each year to symbolize something significant that happened.

No, these traditions don’t directly tell the story of Jesus birth. However, the love and joy our family shares are only possible because He came. I’m still developing some even deeper traditions to instill Christmas truths in our kiddos.

One of the traditions I’d like to start is one that a friend does with her family. Each December she wraps up 25 children’s Christmas stories. Every night the kids pick out a book, unwrap it, and read it together.

I’d like to ask for input from some of you readers. I’m hoping that, in the next year, I’ll be able to start our own Christmas story collection. However, I want this tradition to be something that will instill honorable qualities and Christmas truths in our kiddos. Top-notch books with good pictures too. Any ideas?

And, just for fun, I’d love to hear what Christmas traditions you enjoy most or enjoyed as a child. Opening pajamas every Christmas eve? Swedish meatballs and ~~pickled herring~~ Mom’s oreo ice cream dessert at Christmas dinner? What were and are some of your favorites?

MI Taylor Family

We live in Michigan.