Bring Back Big Families

Seeing as how Christmas is only a few days away, I think I’ll take a dive into what having a big family is like at Christmas. I’ll cover the other holidays as they come.

So, Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year. Everything about spending it with my family excited me. The decorations in the yard, the wreath on the door, the lights everywhere, the smell of cookies baking, the hanging ornaments on the tree, the mistletoe hanging from our ceiling fan, the wrapped presents under the tree, the Samaritan’s Purse gifts that the kids chose this year to replace one of their own gifts, everything about Christmas screams family time.

And that’s why I love Christmas. With five kids, that’s five times the enjoyment. My personal favorite is the decorations in the yard. I tell my wife every year that I’m going to Clark Griswold the house one year. It will happen before my kids leave home.

This year, I put way too many blowups out. The kids love them. That’s why I do it.

We also have our family shopping excursion where we all pile into Dollar Tree and buy each other one small gift each. It’s chaotic and overwhelming trying to hide things from everyone as we’re all shopping together at the same time, but it is completely worth watching everyone carefully examine the toys and various gifts to ensure they pick the perfect one for their sibling or parent. It doesn’t matter in the slightest to them that their gift “only” costs $1.25. They get to pick it for their brothers or sister or mom and dad and that’s all that matters. It’s completely their choice. It’s by far one of my favorite holiday family traditions.

Last one I’ll mention is our family advent calendar. Each year, my wife fills an advent calendar with little drawers with one daily Christmas activity from December 1st to Christmas Eve. Everything from making gingerbread cookies to building Lego snowmen to driving to a town nearby to look at the Christmas in the Park lights, each day has something new. And it’s an amazing way to create memories with our kids. Our shopping day is also one of these events. Did I mention already that it is maybe my favorite?

Christmas is only eight days away (ha. Eight Crazy Nights. What a great not-at-all-family-friendly Christmas movie. My wife and I actually got to watch it the other night when the kids were with their granny. Sorry. I digress) and I can’t wait to see what else we have to do.

That’s Christmas for us. It’s a lot to handle with five. But it’s amazing. I wouldn’t trade one second of it for anything else.