Team Reed: Wake Forest Christmas

We celebrated our "first" Christmas of the season tonight. Even though it's not Dec. 25, we like to go ahead and do our own Christmas here before we travel to GA to be with our extended family on the official Christmas day.

We had a sweet time singing Christmas carols and then it was time for gifts!

Brooks wasn't ready when the rest of us were, but we had him join us anyway : )

I've been singing this song to my girl since she was born, so had to grab up this sign when I saw it at the annual SEBTS Craft and Bake sale.

Mollie's first bike!

We began a new Team Reed tradition this year. We want to intentionally provide opportunities for our children to experience the joy of giving, and there is no better time of the year than Christmas for them to practice this. With there being five of them, we have to be wise in how we choose to implement this, and Josh had the idea to have them draw names. The actual drawing of the names was half the fun for them, and they had about a week to think through what they were going to do for their 'person'. Here's my cheat sheet so I could remember who had who!!

After they opened/looked at their gifts from us, they each got their gift for their person. Ready to give and were they ever excited for the big swap!!

Josh had one more surprise up his sleeve this year. He made an acrostic for each of us, and he read them individually, explaining each word he had chosen. He is a wonderful dad and husband, and I loved seeing each of our children receive affirmation and encouragement from their father.

Then I cried through my turn : )

He loves us well, and it was such a sweet time.

The stack of homemade cards was precious. I love to see how their drawing and writing has improved over the last year (Kate assisted Hudson and Mollie with theirs)