So glad to see you again! Of course you can have hot chocolate. Doesn't the fire smell good tonight? We have to make sure not to start the fire until after the baby's in bed. Now that she is crawling and trying to walk we can not keep her out of anything! That reminds me of another thrifty thing we are doing this year...



With the baby getting into everything this year we made a tough decision. We are NOT putting up our big Christmas tree. This could have been a devastating blow to our 5 yr. old daughter, but we had another plan up our sleeve. In stead of the normal Christmas tree we are doing a traditional Jesse Tree that sits up high out of the baby's reach. Our daughter colored and cut out all the ornaments for the tree herself. Every night we read from the bible as a family and discuss what we read before she hangs the ornament that goes with that day's reading. It's a great way for us to teach her biblical heritage that leads up to Jesus. It's also a frugal way to avoid the big tree. All's you need is a tree limb and some paper really.

With the current financial crunch some families are feeling this year I'm sure that an expensive real tree is going to be a budget buster. There is nothing wrong with going this route instead. The point of Christmas is not the big fancy tree with high electric bill to go with it. Christmas can still be celebrated with traditions that go back farther then the "traditional" Christmas tree.

I'm glad you liked my daughter's ornaments. She worked really hard on them and is proud to put them on the tree ever night. She really does look forward to it. Do you have a tradition tree? If not what do you do instead? Have you ever used a Jesse tree?

I've enjoyed our visit this evening. I just hope I didn't keep you up to late!