This years Christmas will be a bit different from the ones we had before. It will be something like a practice round for the time our son will be with us. The thing is, all the previous years we never really celebrated Christmas together. Work was the sole reason for this. Each Christmas at least one of us was working and we never really got into any celebration mood except for the presents we exchanged. Furthermore my wife never celebrated Christmas with her family in China for obvious reasons.

For this Christmas we have decided to do things different from before. We are preparing to decorate our apartment, perhaps even get a little Christmas tree (though it may not fit in our apartment) and we started preparing some delicious cookies for this holiday. Alright, probably I should say my wife started with baking Christmas cookies and I took on the job of eating them. All this decorating and baking is for us both new land. In my youth I  had been always content with watching my parents setting everything up and just as now, eating the cookies.

Even nature is getting into Christmas mood as it started to snow a bit. Great for most people, terrible for me as I really really dislike that white depression. But I will have to deal with it and especially later our kid will probably love it as I used to, before I realized how much work it will cause when you get older.

 

Next step for us on the list are:

• baking more cookies (I ate them all)
• buying more decoration
• getting some “Glögi”, the Finnish version of Mulled Wine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulled_wine
• prepare a present for my wife (oops, getting a bit late for it)
• deciding on some Christmas songs to play in the next weeks (How I will get sick of it after some time)
• watching some Christmas movies
• figure out what is “must have” for next years Christmas when we are 2+1
• learning some Christmas songs (I have forgotten them all…)

 

There is probably much more for us to consider but we haven’t figure it out yet. As this is only a practice round we will try to make the best out and learn from our mistakes. But I do know one thing for certain, my wife got the Christmas cookie part mostly right!

However if we still don’t get into any celebration mood on Christmas eve, we will just have a video chat straight into my family in Germany – Christmas feeling guaranteed. Thanks to modern technology we can even see when they unpack the present the sent to them.

 

How are you preparing for Christmas? Do you have certain traditions each year?