Category: Blogger of the Month

A Blogger’s Journey: Beginnings

Hi y’all! My name is Alison, but that’s not really important. If this post is not interesting, you will have forgotten my name and everything else about me before you get to the end. So let’s just cut to the ending, shall we?

I am hoping that by the end of our time together you will have learned something new about blogging.

Because really, is that not why you joined ARWB in the first place? I am not ashamed to say that I joined up to learn from other bloggers, even if it was just by watching all of your blogs to see what new blogging trends you were up to. Also, let’s be honest. I wondered if I would get a few hits from adding my name to the directory, because when I joined ARWB in the summer of 2012, I was all about Self Promotion.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

I did not start blogging to promote myself. Self Promotion was just a stage.

If you have blogged for any length of time, you can probably mark your blog with stages. I know that everyone’s stages are not the same but I thought it would be fun to tell you the story of my blog in stages and see if you recognize some of the same phases in your own blogging.

I get to hang out here all month so I am going to take my time and have some fun with telling the story of my blog. If I do not manage to teach you anything, at least we will have a laugh or two along the way at my expense. Let me say up front that in taking a mocking tone about my own blogging journey, I do not mean to offend or poke fun at anyone’s blog but my own. I actually think that all the different and crazy things I have tried in blogging have served me in the long run. I have learned by experimenting, so no post has been wasted. Well, maybe just that one about yoga.

Also, let it be known that I do not in any way purpose to set myself up as some sort of expert blogger. As you will see over the next few weeks, my road through the internet has been (and continues to be) very experimental.

But I believe that starting a personal weblog is an experiment worth doing, so let’s begin at the beginning.

My blog, like many others, began as an online journal in 2007.

I have filled notebooks with my melodramatic musings since I was an angst-filled child of 11, so my friend Jerusalem assured me that I could start a blog.

One winter’s night I stared into the screen at WordPress.com and followed the prompts until it came into existence.

My blog.

I called it Chino House, because Chino is my last name and I was going to record what happened in my house. I am creative like that.

Stage 1: i am too cool for punctuation

Hello stream-of consciousness-nonsense with which I bored my 8 readers.

Hello lack-of-grammar-punctuation-or-editing.

Hello all-text-and-no-photos.

Hello girl-without-a-filter.

Hello ranting-that-would-better-be-kept-to-myself (now deleted).

Let me just say that I loved this stage of blogging. As a stay-at-home-mom, I felt like I had been given a lifeline to the world, and I wrote my little heart out. I exploded with joy when someone commented back, Girl I feel you! or Hang in there! or my very favorite comment, This really touched me!

However, after I had a few more readers, I decided that some ranting should be reserved for drinks with the girls and long weepy emails to my friends. (Hello Sarabeth & Whitney.)

Then I moved to on to Stage 2.

Stage 2: I Have A Cute Toddler

This stage of blogging could also be filed under, I Lost My Mind and Starting Homeschooling or Mommyblogger Wannabe.

During this phase of blogging I tried on all the possible genres of mommybloggers.

I wanted to be funny, but not too crass. Positive, but raw and authentic. I wanted to be a photographer and a maker of graphics. A reviewer of books. Informative and inspiring.

Dear Lord, I am tired just from reading all those descriptions.

It was like the adolescent stage of blogging.

Who am I?

At some point during this phase I decided to post my very first recipe.

Yes! Now I was also a Food Blogger!

Wearing all these hats was a lot of fun, but when my daughter’s birthday or Father’s Day rolled around again and I typed the exact same words as the year before, I started to get bored. I wanted more meaning. I wanted to dig deeper.

So I moved on to being a more serious blogger. And by serious, I mean I took myself too seriously.

Stage 3: Existential Blogging Experiments

NaNoBloMo, Blogging every day for the month of August, or Blogging For Lent.

I sporadically played with schedules. And by sporadically, I mean that I kept a schedule for about two weeks before trying a new one.

A recipe a week?

How about a book review a week?

Oh wait a minute, will that mean I have to read a book every week?

Wordless Wednesday, Fashion Friday, Thoughtless Thursday. (I just made that last one up.)

Link Ups!

Honestly, I re-discovered through blogging how much I really love writing and so I invented all sorts of ways to keep doing it. Often they were utterly meaningless and complete rubbish. But somehow I felt the point was to just keep plugging away.

I would read websites like ProBlogger or CopyBlogger now and then and I realized that there were people out there who were professionally blogging. I figured I had just not yet been discovered. Sooner or later, whoever found The Pioneer Woman would come knocking on my door and give me a prize for making granola and raising children at the same time.

You clever girl, you.

I did not understand that most of the opportunities for professional blogging were actually sought after by bloggers. Sure there are some writers who are discovered through blogging. But they are more often the exception than the rule and even they will tell you that staying in the pro-blog world has involved lots of asks. Or pitches. But I am getting ahead of myself. In Stage 3, I would never have known to use the word pitch. I was still waiting for Oprah to call.

And one day I did receive a call, but you will have to wait until next time for me to tell you who it was.

I know you are riveted.

Tune in next week for Stage 4, in which I become Mesmerized By Free Stuff For Blogging.

PS. I would love for you to share in the comments about your own early stages of blogging! When and why did you start blogging?

Filtered (Does not equal) Fake

Filtered (does not equal) Fake

Written by Jody Dilday, Miss February 2014

An observation: there seem to be two distinct camps in the vast virtual world. You’re either completely RAW – as in say anything, share everything, push the envelope, “how shocking can I be?” or . . . you’re “practically perfect in every way” (read in your beat Mary Poppins impersonator voice) – which makes people simultaneously loathe you and want to be you! (Or at least have your gorgeous home, your perfect family, your zany sense of humor, your impeccable style, your way with words, etc., etc. etc.)

Many people have complimented me for my sunny disposition on Facebook, but I would venture to guess that an equal number of acquaintances roll their eyes and mutter under their breath when they read some of my posts. I’m no dummy. I’ve heard acquaintances criticizing others for being too positive (otherwise known as fake) online. Some are accused of cultivating an online image of perfection, of only posting blissfully happy family photos, of staging their recipe photos in a kitchen worthy to be featured in Better Homes and Garden, or simply “blowing sunshine” (to put it politely).

Call me old fashioned, but I try to follow the advice of all our moms and grandmas who who said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” (As opposed to Clairee Belcher in Steel Magnolias who said, “If you can’t say something nice, come and sit by me!”)

I’m not Pollyanna. It’s not that I don’t THINK not-so-nice things and I don’t have really lousy days. Life at casa Dilday ain’t perfect. Kids get bad grades, they get grounded, I burn dinner, and sometimes we have cereal for supper. (Sometimes life is MUCH harder than that but, even now, I choose not to say more.) So just because I’m not airing all of the not-so-good stuff via social media, that doesn’t mean I’m not “keeping it real.” I just happen to believe that there is enough crapola, mean-spiritedness and negativity out there without me adding to it.

So I CHOOSE to look on the bright side and share only what I think will be uplifting. I believe that among my gifts is that of being an encourager. I feel compelled to intentionally use my voice for good. I’m not trying to appear to be something I am not. I am, however, doing what my mother taught me, and hopefully I am teaching my kids the same through my example.

So while my home decor/marriage/career/life is not perfect, I will focus on what is good and share it. That doesn’t mean I am fake, it means I have a filter and I know how to use it!

Friendship for Good {Blogger of the Month}

Friendship for Good
Written by Jody Dilday, Miss February 2014

Thinking about February’s Theme “Using our Voices to Change the World” immediately calls to mind my group of “do-gooder” friends. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to tell you who we are and how we got started.

In April of 2008 I got a phone call from a lady in my neighborhood I knew but not well. I knew that she worked as the Community Giving manager for one of the most respected companies in Fayetteville, but she and I had spoken only once in a professional setting. Lisa said she had an idea that she wanted to share with me and a handful of other women, and would I come over one night next week for a glass of wine? Ummmmm….. Sure!

On the appointed evening six women gathered around Lisa’s kitchen table. Each of us, at Lisa’s direction, had brought an appetizer to share. As we introduced ourselves to one another (most of us were strangers, only connected somehow to Lisa) and shared a meal, Lisa began to share her vision with us.

She told us that several years earlier, she read an article in Real Simple magazine about a group of women in Washington, D.C. This group of friends gathered once a month for a “girl’s night out” at various restaurants around DC. One night, one member made an observation about how much money they were spending each month dining out, when what they really looked forward to was their time together. They decided then and there to continue their monthly gatherings, but to do them “potluck” style and contribute the money they WOULD HAVE SPENT on dinner into an account to help others in need. They called themselves “Womenade.”

Lisa was inspired by the idea. But as a busy working mom with 3 teenagers, she didn’t have the time to add one more thing to her life. So, she clipped that article and hung onto it . . .for FIVE years! Fast forward to April 2008. Lisa felt that now she had the time, and she still had the interest, so she picked up the phone and extended an invitation to women she thought were like-minded and whom she wanted to foster a friendship with. And here we all were.

Needless to say, we loved the idea. And because the founders of Washington Womenade wanted the concept to spread and did NOT want there to be any formality or red tape associated with their idea, Womenade of NWA was born that night.

Over the past 5 years we’ve met each month (sometimes taking a summer hiatus) at a different member’s home. We all try to bring a dish to share each month. Sometimes that’s a take out pizza and sometimes it’s a bag of chips, but mostly we bring something we prepared at home. Dues are $25 a month, and we have a Womenade NWA checking account. We are not a registered charity (no bylaws! Yippee!) so our gifts are not tax deductible. It’s philanthropy for philanthropy’s sake.

When one of our members hears of a need in the community, we bring it to the group. Collectively we decide whether we should give money or help them “connect the dots” to other resources in the community. Ideally, we want to help out in situations where individuals would otherwise “fall through the cracks.” Our little group of women and our collective $25 gifts have kept a young pregnant couple from being evicted from their home; we’ve helped a single mom and her daughter furnish an apartment when theirs was destroyed in an explosion, and we’ve contributed to a fund to help bury a boy killed in a fire.

We’ve also harnessed the power of our individual networks to raise awareness and support for causes we believe in. We hold two large gatherings each year where some needed item serves as admission. Great food, beverages, networking, and SILLINESS are signatures of Womenade parties. At each gathering, we share the concept of Womenade and encourage others to begin their own Womenade groups.

Some examples of our parties include:

Womenade Panty Raid – collected 360 pairs of new underwear for the Families in Transition Program at Fayetteville High School
Bring Bling – collected gently used prom dresses and accessories for the Glass Slipper Project at Fayetteville High School
Supporting the Girls – a crazy bra-decorating contest held each fall (now in its 4th year!) has collected hundreds of new bras for area women’s shelters
Womenade PJ Party – the biggest and best slumber party NWA has ever seen! Also in its 4th year, the PJ Party is held the Friday or Saturday night before Super Bowl Sunday. It’s an all night dance/food/gab fest at the Courtyard by Marriott in Fayetteveille. Admission is a NEW pair of pajamas for the area women’s shelters.

@JDilday with a group of friends affectionately known as the “Lutheran Chicks” at the #NWAPJParty14 on February 1, 2014.

As a social worker by training, a non-profit executive by profession, and a “do-gooder” at heart, I find that Womenade of NWA has been another outlet of service for me. And yet it is so much more. These Womenade ladies have become some of my closest friends. They are role models to me. They are my sounding board, encouragers, and confidants. We are Womenade.

If you’d like more information about starting Womenade with your friends, email me at @jodydilday@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to help you out!

Miss February 2014 – Jody Dilday

Hey there! I’m Jody and I’m thrilled to be the Arkansas Women Bloggers’ Blogger of the Month for February. Here’s a word of (unsolicited) advice to you for when you are selected to be the Arkansas Women Bloggers Blogger of the Month: Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT read all the introductory posts from previous BOMs for “inspiration.” Trust me. There’s nothing like comparing yourself to some of the most darling, creative, hilarious, Jesus-loving ladies in the entire state to make you feel inept. But then again, that’s probably just me.

I always feel a little bit like an outsider, and here’s why:

I moved to Arkansas from South Dakota in the middle of my senior year of high school (talk about culture shock!) and attended the U of A during the bow-head era, sporting my as-always super-short hair. I did not pledge a sorority (go figure!). I drank “pop” and wore sweatshirts and jeans to Razorback games while the other girls wore dresses and heels and drank bourbon from flasks their frat boy boyfriends had smuggled into the stadium. And to top it all off, I was baptized as an infant and attended the only ELCA Lutheran church in town. This was where I felt at home: among a church family of mostly 40-something, ex-pat Midwesterners of Scandinavian descent.

I’m a social worker by nature, and I have the degree to back it up. I work full time as the Executive Director of the Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Northwest Arkansas (more on that in a subsequent post).

I met and married Mark while still in college and we made Fayetteville our home. We are raising 3 great kids who are growing up entirely too fast! Gracie is 17, a senior, smart, confident and independent. (We are currently fighting about where she’ll go to college.) Ethan is 15. He recently returned from a 2 year trip to the “dark-side” (I hated his hair and he hated pretty much everything else) and is, once again my hilarious, witty, sweet and loving boy (we are still working on the whole “applying ourselves in school” thing). Genna is 12 and in the midst of the dreaded middle school “longing-to-fit-in” stage. She has a zillion friends that I can’t keep track of, yet views herself as “not popular.” Ah, the joys of parenting teens!

I started blogging following a somewhat traumatic yet also hilarious escapade while working for the American Red Cross. Over the past 8 years my blog has evolved to become a mash-up of a:

Digital scrapbook of our growing family
Online journal (a la Doogie Howser, M.D.
Collection of favorite recipes
Archive of Christmas letters

I’ve attended the Arkansas Women Bloggers Unplugged Conference each year, where I am reminded NOT to compare myself to my fellow bloggers, but to realize that I am part of a very special community of darling, creative, and hilarious Arkansas Women Bloggers. Hmmm…. Maybe I am not an outsider after all.

I’m on the web here:
My blog is called “Mindless Wanderings” but you’ll find it at jdilday.wordpress.com
jdilday on Facebook
@jdilday on Twitter
jdilday on Instagram

Birthday Beginnings {Blogger of the Month}

Written by Miss January 2014, Whitney Sutherland

Back in September, I hit a milestone birthday. The big 3-5…yikes! Luckily I didn’t experience any of the emotional symptoms that can sometimes accompany milestone birthdays. Instead, something in me changed and I felt like it was time to START looking how I thought a woman my age should look. Since graduating college, I hadn’t really changed my routine; I was still fond of a cardigan and my makeup choices were still as simple as then even with my newfound wrinkles and gray hairs! For a long time, I felt like other women looked more put together and polished with cute outfits and perfect makeup. I won’t lie; it definitely impacted my confidence in some settings.

I slowly started to play with fashion and was inspired by a fellow Arkansas Women Blogger, Kelly of Delta Moxie. She rocked a fun outfit at this year’s Arkansas Women Bloggers Unplugged conference (stripes, polka dots, big accessories, and cowboy boots…oh my!) She made it look so simple and accessible compared to what you see in fashion magazines. The week following AWBU, I got startedand I tried to stay with patterns in the same color palette for my first forays into mixing patterns. I’m still developing this new facet to my style but I’m finding myself looking outside my normal box and putting together new looks with some of my trusty old cardigans! As a side note, Kelly wrote a great blog sharing how she developed her personal style with a little help too.

A few weeks after AWBU, I made an offhand comment to one of my close friends about how awesome her eye makeup looked and how I wished that I could do my eyes like that. I wassurprised when she called me the next week and scheduled a trip to Ulta with me. I was not prepared for the colors that she directed me towards…they were much richer than what was currently in my makeup bag. We took my purchases and did a makeover lesson. I had the right technique but had spent my adult life buying eye makeup colors that were the same as my skin tone…no wonder you couldn’t tell I was wearing any makeup.

The next morning after our makeup lesson, I spent extra time working on my makeup and trying not to be scared by the color that I wasn’t used to having on my eyes. I was surprised when coworkers noticed and complimented me. More surprising than getting compliments, was the change in how I felt with my new makeup and fashion choices. Almost immediately, I felt more professional and like my outside appearance matched how I felt on the inside.

I have always heard that you’ll ask for help when you are ready and I guess that’s true for me. I finally felt ready for my style and appearance to match my age. Don’t get me wrong…35 is a great age but my style and makeup weren’t conveying the personal image that I felt on the inside. This year my birthday happened to be the wakeup call that I needed to start looking like the Whitney that I felt like on the inside. I’m so grateful to the ladies who helped me START the change process. It’s really never too late to develop your personal style!

The Starting Line

Written by Miss January 2014, Whitney Sutherland

Where will you go in 2014?

It’s a new year and if you are like many of us then you are working on resolutions that you want to accomplish for the year. For me when I think about a New Year beginning, this Thoreau quote has always inspired me. As an athlete, my dreams usually have to do with a race or performance goal. Here’s how I will be putting together my racing goals for 2014.

I start with an old school spiral bound calendar book. This lets me lay out race ideas on the monthly pages. I research online for different races and also lay out any personal commitments like the annual Arkansas Women Bloggers conference or professional obligations like travel or meetings. Here’s a fun link to a 2014 calendar download to get you started.

Once I have races penciled onto my calendar, I start looking at the timing to build a training plan. There has to be realistic timing to train for a specific goal or distance which is why I make sure that my calendar is a mix of races for fun and goal races. This helps me protect myself from injuries and ensure that I allow for the safe buildup of mileage or speed as well as recovery after big races.

Finally after I have done my pre-work, I’m ready to start putting together specific goals for the year. I usually like to give myself goals that are measurable but not necessarily finite. I might set a goal that is for a race finishing time within a time range or I might set a goal for how I run a race. No matter what my goals is though, I make sure to lay out a plan for how I’ll tackle thegoals for the year through a training plan. My calendar helps keep me accountable to the plan and track my progress towardseach of my goals.

If I do the pre-work and set realistic goals and follow my training plans then when I reach the starting line for my goal races I can treat it like my victory lap. The race becomes a celebration of all the work that I have put into making it to that starting line instead of a nervous mess of stress and pressure for the race. Baron Baptiste speaks of this in his book Being of Power. “Set the intention for growth, but hold it lightly. Often we get caught up in a goal, which can get very serious. We add heaviness and significance to it, and then this leads to all kinds of stress.” I have definitely learned this lesson the hard way and it helped me change the way that I lay out my racing goals for the year. I see lots of others get caught up in rigid training plans and then if they miss a workout or don’t hit a time in a workout then they become overcome with a sense of failure. I’ve been there before too and thankfully after making some tweaks to my process I have finally found a system that allows me to accomplish my goals with flexibility.

So you are not a runner, don’t worry these tips can still apply for you. No matter what type of goal you want to tackle in 2014, you should take time to plan. I recommend that you research and understand what is involved in taking on your dreams. Make sure that the plan you lay out for the year is realistic and that you have the resources necessary for the journey. I hope these tips can help you as head in the direction of your dreams in 2014.

Miss January 2014 – Whitney Sutherland

Hi there! I’m Whitney or RunningWhit as I’m known on my blog. I began my blog in March 2010 with the help of my friend Lyndi. I began with a blog post that was officially four sentences long including the one word sentence, “Thanks!” After that I quickly found my way and began to write posts recapping races that I did and my training adventures.

I initially discovered blogs as I would research races and try to get some insights into race courses. One of the first bloggers that I followed hosted a giveaway but you had to be a blogger to enter so that planted the seed for me of wanting to have a blog. Prizes! What can I say, I love prizes! I quickly discovered there was more to blogging than just giveaways. There was so much information available and so many different types of blogs to follow. As a new triathlete I was eager to learn about training plans and race strategies and through blogs I was able to learn more than I could through books and magazines that weren’t written by people like me with a full time job training and racing for fun.

Over the past four years of blogging, Arkansas Women Bloggers has been one of the biggest surprises for me. At one of the first AWBU conferences one of the speakers made the comment that bloggers are writers too. It sounds so simple, yet to me it hadn’t even crossed my mind… I know that sounds like it doesn’t make any sense!

Growing up I lacked confidence in writing. It was one of my least favorite subjects so much so that my mom mandated that I take Freshman Composition class in college even though I had tested out of it. She knew that I needed to be more confident in my writing in order to be a successful student in the rest of my college career. Fast forward to AWBU and one of the speakers saying that bloggers are writers and I was a little taken aback. I had a blog but I most definitely was not a writer and all this talk of having a voice, huh? After letting this concept sink in, I realized that it was going to be okay if my blog meant I was a writer too. The label didn’t mean that I had to change my writing style(otherwise known as my voice) and much to the disdain of some I love to use the “…”and you’ll find it in my writing quite often!

I’m excited to spend the next month with all of you talking about the theme of START! There are so many things that you can START this month and this year. It’s truly never too late to START living the life you want to and for me that means putting together a calendar for my year of all the races that I’m interested in doing and of course I make sure to block out a fall weekend for AWBU! It’s going to be fun to share some of my other interests with you as we kick off 2014 with a great START!

You can follow Whitney on:
Facebook
Pinterest
Instagram
Twitter

Growing Family Blessings

By Kelcie Huffstickler, Blogger of the Month

One of my favorite “traditions” is getting together to celebrate Christmas with my mom’s side of the family. I think back to as young as I can remember, and I see myself sitting in my Nana and Papa’s living room. I’m Indian-style on the carpet, scrunched between sixteen first cousins, and the grin plastered on my face is identical to theirs. We’re all talking a notch louder than usual, and the room is shaking with excitement.

Only a portion of the presents fit under Nana’s 4-foot tree, so the rest are piled on furniture and cover half the room’s floor space. After passing out each gift to its designated owner, one of my older guy cousins shouts “1, 2, 3!,” and we simultaneously send paper and ribbon flying.

I adore those memories.

As years have passed, though, almost all of us cousins have married and started families. And the chaos has multiplied as each family has grown. Attempting to fit all of us now into a typical living room would be almost a sick joke.

Thankfully, a few years ago, my Nana and Papa moved into a much larger house. Though it was a little sad to see our memories boxed up and shifted around, we were so happy for them and excited that we’d finally have room for our growing family to gather. For several years we enjoyed holidays in their spacious, renovated old home. It had a large dining room, two living areas, and seemed like the perfect hub for a multiplying family. Unfortunately, it just couldn’t keep up…

In our family, we joke that at every get-together, we take a photo of all the girls who are pregnant. (And really, it’s not a joke; it’s true.) In just a few short years, we outgrew my grandparents’ new home, and this year, we held Thanksgiving and Christmas at our church’s family life center. There are now 56 of us total. (2 Parents, 6 Children, 5 Spouses, 17 Grandchildren, 12 Grandchildren spouses, and 14 Great-grandchildren)

At the time of this photo, there were also three girls who were pregnant, and since then, another has announced a pregnancy. So it doesn’t look like we’ll be fitting back into a house anytime soon.
There is a little piece of me that misses those shoulder-to-shoulder Christmases in my Nana and Papa’s living room. They were wild, yet intimate… simple and memorable. But I’m thankful for the stages of life, and right now, I wouldn’t trade anything for my family that’s multiplying faster than architecture can keep up. I feel richly blessed to be part of a family that values family, a family that all likes each other enough to keep showing up for holidays, and a family that keeps having babies because we don’t know what else we’d rather be doing with our time…

A family Christmas that requires an industrial-sized kitchen and banquet tables wasn’t something we envisioned sitting in that small living room on the cozy carpet. But if it takes a 10,000-square-foot building to house the blessings God’s given us, then we’ll break it in right with flying paper and ribbon, and we’ll celebrate the fact He saw fit to bless us so.

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” Ephesians 3:20

Christmas Memories {Blogger of the Month}

By Kelcie Huffstickler, Blogger of the Month

It was the first Christmas after Tyler and I were married, and we were back in his hometown, sitting at his parents’ kitchen table. We were both in college, but when we came home for weekends or holidays, we were kids again – catered to, doted over and cleaned up after.
It was Christmas Eve, the designated night for us to celebrate with his family. And the fragrance of juicy, marinated rib-eyes filled the small, cozy home. My mother-in-law’s steaks were and are my favorite meal, and my stomach was giddy with anticipation. She sang Christmas carols as she danced about the kitchen, buttering rolls, sweetening tea, and retrieving baked potatoes from the oven. “I’m just so happy to have all my family home!” she declared between verses.
In the next room, red and white stockings hung from a coat rack with each of our names penned in my mother-in-law’s writing, and a modest tree with colored lights twinkled above a sea of presents. A tacky, electric Santa sang and moved robotically, adding to the festive mood. And on the TV, A Christmas Story played over and over, as my new husband and his brother quoted their favorite movie’s lines verbatim.
Back in the kitchen, the five of us sat down for a Christmas feast: me, my husband, his brother, my mother-in-law and my father-in-law, who only moved off the “back porch” and into the kitchen to eat for special occasions. This was certainly one of them. We stuffed ourselves ‘til we were nearly sick, packing in every dripping morsel, then moved into the living room to open gifts. My mother-in-law glowed as we opened the presents she had thoughtfully purchased and wrapped and laughed jovially as we enjoyed the evening together.
It was a night to remember.
Now seven years later, things have changed. My husband’s family – my family – is navigating life paths none of us foresaw. Things like divorce and economic hardship have changed every aspect of their lives. I don’t know if there will be stockings hung in that small, cozy house this Christmas, but if there are, they won’t have our names on them.
Though things have changed a great deal, memories of Christmases, 4th of Julys, and regular ole Saturday nights with my “other” family are still thriving. I know my mother-in-law, in particular, grieves the loss of what was and regrets she can’t still give us the gifts of home and togetherness. What she may not realize, though, is that the joy created in that home is still rippling in each of our lives, mine included.
People change and grow and move on with their lives, and that’s just the way it is. But as I move on with mine, I’ll always carry that first Christmas in my heart. It’s wrapped as tightly as those presents sprawled out under the tree, and no amount of time, change, or hardship can take it from me.

Letting the Traditions Fall Where They May {Blogger of the Month}

By Miss December 2013 Kelcie Huffstickler

When I had my first daughter, I was ecstatic to create memorable holiday traditions with her. During her first and second Christmas, I mulled over ideas that we could do as a family of three and that we could continue to do year after year. I remember driving through Sherwood’s Enchanted Forrest of Lights and thinking maybe that would be one of our family’s new traditions… However, by the next year, we had moved and added another child to the mix. And nothing played out quite the same. Christmas was uber-chaotic that year, as our second daughter was born Dec. 23 and all things holiday took a back seat to her arrival.

Now, I’m coming upon my fifth Christmas as a parent, and as I ponder our family traditions, I still don’t feel like we have any nailed down. Each year we do memorable things, and I think of more things I’d like to try, but each year also brings change, different ages, and varied interests for my growing little ones. So far it feels like the only thing we consistently do at Christmas is pull our tree from its box and decorate it. We’re so original!

I know family traditions don’t have to be extravagant. Some of my favorite Christmas memories from childhood include watching Home Alone each year with my sister (and quoting it line-for-line) and decorating paper sacks that we filled with gifts for inmates at the jail.

But it seems today, there’s no such thing as a simple Christmas. Pinterest has made every housewife feel like her meals should be from scratch, her decor should be immaculate, and her tree should be fit for a magazine. And then there’s an endless number of pins like “50 Christmas Activities for Kids” and “25 Christmas Family Traditions” that make you feel you should pack your calendar with meaningful fun.

No offense to anyone out there, but the thought of coming up with a creative place to hide an Elf on the Shelf each morning — and then remembering to actually put him there every day for a month — completely overwhelms me. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t want “Christmas Traditions” to become just another thing on my holiday to-do list. And I don’t want to feel burdened at the thought of making something happen just because we did it last year. During this stage of my life, I’m doing good to consistently get everyone dressed and bathed each day, much less anything else.

So instead of trying to nail down family traditions or stressing over an activity just because we “have” to do it, I’m going to attempt a different plan this year. I’ll let the traditions fall where they may. I’ll go about this holiday season simply and naturally, partaking in the activities that feel right and stress-free. I’ll remember the real Reason for the Season – the birth of Jesus, God’s Son – and keep Him
the center of our festivities. And I’ll remember that kids don’t care about extravagance and decadence – it’s the simple things, like watching Home Alone with their sisters, that create the real lasting memories. I’ll relax, enjoy, and be OK with quiet, contemplative days.

At least, that’s the plan.