On the Seventh Day of Christmas...
A freebie and a sneak peek
Growing up we had one non-negotiable tradition. Well…we had more than one (my dad is obsessed with Christmas), but one that defined my memories of childhood Christmases and was unique to my family. I’ve since found out that it is a common tradition, but growing up I’d never met another family that did it, so it felt very special to me. On Christmas Eve every child (and sometimes every adult) would get to unwrap two special gifts. Each year they were the same gifts. As we got older, we spent a long time joking around, making guesses as to what the gifts were, prolonging the delicious feeling of anticipation that comes with Christmas. Ultimately, we’d all unwrap the long-waited for new pajamas and Christmas ornaments. Then we’d all quickly change into our new pajamas and take the obligatory picture of each kid looking for an empty branch on which to hang our new ornament. Then, every year until we got married, we’d pile into one kid’s bedroom and have a slumber party. My parents would laugh as we got older.
I remember my high school and college years being so annoyed because my older brother would partner with my younger siblings and invade my room, singing Christmas carols and goofing around until the wee hours. All I wanted to do was sleep…Christmas came faster that way. At midnight my older brother would wake us all up with a slightly irreverent version of “Happy Birthday Jesus.” And I would throw my pillow at him and insist that Jesus would not want him to be so rude as to interrupt my slumber. It seemed we would never outgrow the magic of Christmas anticipation and wonder. I haven’t regularly continued the pajama and ornament tradition with my own children, but writing this memory makes me wish I had. In fact, I will start looking for pajamas this week. It was a blessing to start my own family, having enough ornaments to decorate a small tree, and we enjoy reminiscing about specific holiday memories that have become attached to each decoration as we trim the tree every year.
: ) Sarah
Coming Up in CPQ
Earlier this year, we sent out (via our newsletter) a call-out for compendium writers for Year 6 of the magazine. Our compendium, like other submissions here at CPQ, represents feet on the ground. Our compendium philosophy is as follows:
These do not need to be, nor should they be, perfectly written or “perfect” Charlotte Mason (though they do need to be assuming a heart towards Mason’s methods.) You don’t need to sound like you know all the things. Your philosophy does not need to be fully flushed out. You don’t have to have all your dishes done, have been previously published, own seven chickens, or know how to make sourdough bread. But you can have all those things and write about them, too! These are not, and will never be, about obtaining any standard of perfection. They are about the reality of living life, building families, growing character, and doing the hard thing of educating our children at home.
We have five homeschool moms lined up for our compendium section next year. They will share with us what gets them through the hard days, describe the large room they are working towards with their children, give us an aspect of their personhoods that have been enhanced because of their study of Miss Mason’s philosophy, and share with us how they’ve seen Plutarch planting seeds of goodness in their children's character.
Seventh Day of Christmas Freebie
