Blogmas Series: Favorite Christmas Songs

I’m not ashamed to admit that I listen to Christmas music year round. What can I say!? I even had Christmas songs on my labor and delivery playlists for Matilda’s birth in October, as well as Evelyn and Zoey’s births in June.

In the past, at our church, Jon and I have also been apart of both adult and children’s Christmas musical programs. I love listening to so many of these old songs, because it brings back sweet memories from time spent with some of our dearest friends. We enjoy these songs so much, now we’ve even begun to pass them down to our own kids. Our girls like listening to the Christmas songs as much as I do.

I created a YouTube playlist, with 25 of my favorite Christmas songs. Additionally, I also included a list of my favorite Christmas songs in alphabetical order. I like so many Christmas songs and albums that it was hard to narrow my list down to just my top favorites. However, I did my best!!

If I had to chose my very favorite Christmas album of all time, it would be "Christmas in Diverse City" by TobyMac. This is just such a good album and honestly, I never get tired of listening to these songs. Sometimes life is just hard, so we use these songs to have spontaneous family dance parties. My girls like this so much that they will request their favorite song if I haven't already played it. For that reason, TobyMac's new Christmas album, "Light of Christmas" is growing on me, so it's probably safe to say that any Christmas album put out by TobyMac are my favorite.

I hope you enjoy my playlist!!

Click here to listen to my Favorite Christmas Songs playlist on YouTube.

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My 25 Favorite Christmas Songs 

“All I Want For Christmas Is You” by, Mariah Carey 

“Ava Maria” by, Michael Buble 

“Blue Christmas” by, Elvis Presley & Martina McBride 

“Breath Of Heaven” by, Amy Grant 

“Carol Of The Bells/What Child Is This?” by, Point of Grace 

“Christmas Cannon” by, Trans-Siberian Orchestra 

“Christmas Day” by, Michael W Smith 

“Christmas This Year” by, TobyMac 

“Hallelujah” by, Barlow Girl 

“I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day” by, Casting Crowns 

“I’ll Be Home For Christmas” by, Elvis Presley & Carrie Underwood 

“Joseph’s Lullaby” by, MercyMe 

“Light Of Christmas” by, TobyMac 

 “Light Of The World” by, Lauren Daigle 

“Little Drummer Boy” by, Josh Groban 

“Mary Did You Know” by, Pentatonix 

“Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” by, NSYNC 

 “Noel” by, Chris Tomlin featuring Lauren Daigle 

“Somebody’s Angel” by, Mandisa 

“The First Noel” by, TobyMac 

“The Heart Of Christmas” by Matthew West 

“We Three Kings” by, Tenth Avenue North 

“Where Are You Christmas?” by, Faith Hill 

“Wrap This One Up” by, Christy Nockels 

“You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch” by, Lindsey Stirling

Blogmas Series: The 12 Dates of Christmas

Today, Jon and I celebrate 12 years of marriage!!!! I can’t believe we’ve been married for 12 years. I remember when we first got married, we have friends who had been married for 4 or 5 years and I thought that was a long time. Now we’ve been married for more than double that amount of time.

I am truly thankful.

Being married to Jon has been the greatest blessings of my life. Our marriage isn’t perfect and takes a lot of hard work. Only with the Lord in our lives, have we made it this far.

For sometime now, marriages have been under fire. I feel like Godly Christian marriages are satan’s #1 target right now. That being said, please pray for your family and friends who are married. Pray that God would strengthen their marriage and bring reconciliation even it looks hopeless. Additionally, if you think about it, please keep us in your prayers. We need the Lord’s help as we navigate living in a foreign country and raising 5 little ones.

In honor of our 12th anniversary, I’m going to share with you “The 12 Dates of Christmas”. I compiled a list of holiday date ideas. I have included some at home date ideas and a few ideas that will get you both out of the house.

With five kids (including 2 5-month olds), we have had to be creative when it comes to date night. Right now most of our date nights are at home, which have included takeout and watching our favorite movie or tv show. We also like playing board games and working on puzzles together.

What are some of your favorite date night ideas?

Other date night ideas check out The Dating Divas website and My "Love & Marriage" Pinterest board.

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The 12 Dates of Christmas

1. Go ice skating. 

2. Have a Christmas movie night. 

3. Go see Zoo lights.

4. Order takeout and eat by candlelight at home. 

5. Choose a child’s name from a wish list and go shopping to find a toy to make the season for a child.

6. Have a game night.

7. Get dressed up and go on a fancy date downtown. 

8. Bake holiday goodies and bring them to your neighbors. 

9. Drive around look at Christmas lights. 

10. Look at your wedding photos. 

Blogmas Series: Christmas Trivia

When my family gets together for the holidays, other than a White Elephant Gift Exchange, we love to play games. In recent years, we’ve really gotten into playing trivia games when we get together for the holidays.

Our trivia game is super informal and consists of one of my siblings reading trivia questions off of their phone, that they found on Google. We’ve answered all kinds of trivia questions!! Additionally, we've created “Top 10” or “Top 5” lists, such as the “Top 5 Highest Grossing Movies of all Time”. Then we work together to figure out the answers in the correct order.

These trivia nights are so much fun!!

I have such found memories of trying to come up with the ultimate top 10 list that might stump my husband and brothers-in-law, which is virtually impossible, because they seem to know everything. Seriously, if we played boys verses girls, they would always win.

Have you ever had trivia game nights!? If not, you should consider doing a trivia night this holiday season. Below I’ve included how we play our trivia game, for those of you who are thinking about hosting your own “Christmas Trivia Game Night”. Just for fun! Here’s a bit of Christmas trivia to get you started too.

How to Play: The Christmas Trivia Game 

*Two ways to play. As one big group or spilt into groups.* 

1. Pick teams. Boys vs. girls is always fun. 

2. Choose someone from each team to read the trivia questions for you.

3. If you want, keep score. Whichever team answers the most questions correctly wins!! 

Variations: Top 10 lists. Created “Top 10” or “Top 5” lists, such as the “Top 5 Highest Grossing Movies of all Time”. Then work together to figure out the answers in the correct order. 

Be sure to check out Pinterest for other trivia game night ideas, especially if you want a printable trivia game that you can print out before your game night.


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25 Christmas Trivia Questions

1. Name the eight original Reindeer.

2. In which direction should you stir mincemeat for good luck; clockwise or anti-clockwise?

3. When was the first Christmas card sent? Who designed it?

4. What is the biggest selling Christmas single of all time?

5. What is the most popular tree topper?

6. Which was the last US state to declare an official holiday for Christmas?

7. Where did the Nativity take place?

8. According to the song, what did my true love give to me on the seventh day of Christmas?

9. Which country is Eggnog said to have originated from?

10. What color are the berries of the mistletoe plant?

11. What American President banned Christmas trees in the White House?

12. What Christmas decoration was originally made from strands of silver?

13. Name the animatronic cassette-playing bear toy that every kid wanted for Christmas in the mid 80s.

14. What Christmas word means "turning of the sun"?

15. What does Alvin want for Christmas?

16. What airport was taken over on Christmas Eve by terrorists in the film Die Hard?

17. How many gifts would you receive if you received all of the gifts in the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas"?

18. Which country did the gingerbread house come from?

19. What did Frosty the Snowman have for a nose?

20. What is Dr. Suess's real name?

21. Which reindeer is Rudolph's Dad?

22. In which author's novel is it "always winter but never Christmas"?

23. What Christmas food is made from "marsh-whorts"?

24. Which ocean is Christmas Island in?

25. What is the name of the rabbit in the magic hat in Frosty the Snowman?

*BONUS*

Top 5 Highest Grossing Christmas Movies (in order from highest to lowest)

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Trivia Answers
1. Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Dasher, Prancer, Vixen, Dancer, and Donner
2. Clockwise
The first Christmas card was sent in 1843 and was designed by John Horsley. 3.
4. White Christmas
5. Angel
6. Oklahoma
7. Bethlehem
8. Seven swans a-swimming
9. England
10. White
11. Theodore Roosevelt
12. Tinsel
13. Teddy Ruxpin.
14. Yuletide
15. A hula-hoop
16. Dulles International Airport, Washington D.C.
17. 364
18. Germany
19. A button
20. Theodor Geisel
21. Donner
22. C.S. Lewis
23. Cranberry Sauce
24. Indian Ocean
25. Hocus Pocus

*BONUS*
1. Home Alone (1990). 2. How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). 3. The Polar Express (2004).
4. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992). 5. Elf (2003).

Blogmas: Visiting Sham Shui Po (“Toy Street”)

Last weekend, my friend invited me to go with her to Sham Shui Po aka “Toy Street” in Downtown Hong Kong. It is about an hour long bus ride from where we live. I couldn’t wait to finish my Christmas shopping, without my kids in tow.

First, we went out for dim sum for lunch before hitting up Toy Street. Just as a side note, the dim sum restaurant was delicious. There wasn't anything I tried that I did not like. Hands down, my absolute favorite was the BBQ Pork Bun. As soon as I took a bite of it all I could say was, "Wow! Wow!" It was just that amazing!!

As we walk down the street to Sham Shui Po, from a distance it didn’t look like much. However, the closer we got to “Toy Street” I slowly began to see shops on both sides of the road, filled with toys and Christmas decorations of all kinds!! Everything didn’t fit neatly into shops, like they do in the United States. Here on Toy Street in Hong Kong, toys lined the streets and if that wasn’t enough other smaller vendors had their booths set up in the road with even more products for you to purchase.

To say the sidewalk is crowded is an understatement!! With shops and vendors on either side of the sidewalk, there wasn’t much room left for people to walk through from shop to shop.

When we first got to Toy Street there weren’t too many people shopping. However, as the day went on more and more people kept showing up to get their own Christmas shopping done.

I’ve been shopping on Black Friday in the United States. However, this shopping experience was worse than Black Friday. I kept thinking to myself this was “Black Friday on steroids!”

I wore my backpack on my front, because otherwise I was hitting people with my bag. This also helped me ensure that no one would take or steal my money or my purchased presents. We went from shop to shop finding the greatest toy, decorations, dolls, puzzles, fun pens, and so much more!! On top of that everything is reasonably priced and fairly cheap, which made it even more tempting to go crazy buying fun gifts for the girls. I did my best to sick to my list!

When it was all said and done, I finished my Christmas shopping and was able to buy everything (including Sophie’s birthday present) for just about $100 US dollars. Seriously!? I was impressed!! 

I’m so thankful to my sweet friend for taking me shopping on Toy Street. I can’t wait to go back and take my family with me next time!!

Blogmas Series: Holiday Meal Planning

Last week, I gave you some ideas and tips for anyone who has to celebrate "Christmas on a Budget". I really hope that you are beginning to implement some of those principles that I talked about, into your own home.

Another major way our family of seven is able to stay on budget is through monthly meal planning. Meal planning is simply taking some time to plan a number of your meals for the next few weeks or month, depending on how you want to do it. Your current season of life will help you determine what method will be best for your family at this time. In the past, I have tried both: planning out meals for the entire month or just planning our meals out two weeks at a time.

My favorite method has been to plan our meals each month and as I meal plan, I make two grocery lists. One list is for items I need to buy for meals during the first half of the month and the second list is for items I will need for meals during the second half of the month. Let me clarify, I only plan out our dinners, because we pretty much eat the same few things for breakfast and lunch. As a result, I add those items to my grocery list when we need them.

Honestly, right after we moved to Hong Kong, I just planned for two weeks at a time, because it was easier for me to plan than finding time to do a whole month at a time. Now that we have settled into a good routine in our new home, I am going back to planning one month of meals at a time. I like planning one month at a time, because then I don't have to worry about finding time to meal plan during the second half of the month. I like getting everything planned out at once.

Several years ago, I wrote a blog post called, "Meal Planning on a Budget". Many of the tips that I will share with you today are similar to that older blog post. Please continue below to read about how plan out our meals.

How to Meal Plan

1. Pray.
I believe that God cares about all of the details in our life and that includes our meal planning. God sees your faithfulness to plan good and healthy meals for your family. He will help you to stay on budget if you are faithful to seek Him first in everything that you do. Yes, even meal planning...

2. Make a Weekly (or Monthly) Meal Plan. 
Pull out your calendar. I use both my wall calendar and the calendar in my phone to make sure that I know what is coming up this month. It helps me to know when my husband will be traveling, which means I might not need to make quite as much for dinner. In addition, you will need your favorite recipes. Again, either pull them up on your phone snd browse Pinterest or break out your favorite cookbooks. These will help inspire you to try new things and not just make the same few dishes over and over again.

3. Make a Grocery List. 
If monthly meal planning, you might want to make two grocery lists. I tried shopping one month at a time, but it has never worked for me and my family. We enjoy fruit and vegetables, which won't be good for an entire month. As a result, I go grocery shopping every two weeks. Always check your cupboards and try to use up what you have first. If still need additional ingredients write them down either on your grocery list.

4. Go Shopping.
This is the hardest part, stick to your list!! If other people in your family try to persuade you to buy things that aren't on your list, then just don't take them with you. Go shopping by yourself. Try your best to find things on sale. However, don't go crazy buying every new product that is advertised at your grocery store of choice.

5. Reuse Leftover Meals.
If there are meals that you do not eat this month, save them and roll them over to the next month. This is another key tip to keep you on budget and not waste the food that you already purchased.



All that begin said, as the holidays are quickly approaching take time to sit down and plan out some meals for the next few weeks. Plan what you will have for Christmas dinner and any other special occasions you might celebrate this month.

Blogmas Series: Top 10 Favorite Christmas Movies

Christmas movies make me so happy!! 

When I was a kid, one of the main ways my family spent time together was to sit down and watch a good movie. We would watch all kinds of movies together. We watched every kind of movie from my Daddy's favorites (The Hunt for Red October and Lonesome Dove) to my Mom's favorites (The Sound of Music and Oklahoma) and everything in between.

My family liked movies so much, that every Christmas my parents bought each of us kids one of our favorite movies to begin to grow our own movie collection. This worked out well, because most years my Daddy had to work on Christmas day. While Daddy was gone, Mom would let us each open up one present (our movie) and then we spent the rest of the day watching new movies and waiting for Daddy to get home.

Additionally, my family spent a lot of time watching Christmas movies. To this day, I still enjoy watching Christmas movies, because they bring back childhood memories from holidays with my family.

For this reason, I like all kinds of Christmas movies and it was hard to narrow it down to just my top TEN favorites. As you will see below, I kind of cheated and combined two of my favorite movies into one. What can I say!? I tried...


Below you will find a list of my "Top 10 Favorite Christmas Movies".

Top 10 Favorite Christmas Movies

10. White Christmas.  

9. Elf.

8. How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

7. Jingle All the Way.

6. The Family Man.

5. The Holiday.

4. Christmas with the Kranks.

3. The Santa Clause.

2. Home Alone I & II.

1. The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Now it's your turn, what are some of your favorite Christmas movies?

Blogmas Series: Family Cookie Party

Back in 2005, Jon and I spent our first Christmas together in Haiti, visiting my best friend, Michelle, and her family. It was such a memorable Christmas. Over the holidays, Michelle’s Mom, Ms. Cindy, baked the most delicious food for us. To this day, our favorite sugar cookie recipe is the one that Ms. Cindy made for in Haiti. During our first Christmas, we had fun baking and decorating sugar cookies. I am happy to report, that almost 13 years later and our Christmas cookie tradition is still going strong.

Seriously, we take Ms. Cindy’s sugar cookie recipe with us wherever we go and share it with our loved ones during Christmas time. We have taken this recipe to Oregon, Texas, Washington, California, China, and now Hong Kong!!

In recent years, my side of the family tried to have a “Family Cookie Party” whenever we can get together for the holidays. Each year our family seems to add a few new members and my Mom currently has 17 grand babies, with two sets of TWINS. Back to our cookie party, it’s fun to bake sugar cookies and let the kids decorate their own cookies.

This tradition is far from perfect, because last year everyone who came to the family cookie party got sick. Oops!! Little did we know, my niece brought home and awful stomach bug, which would be passed on to most everyone in the family. Even my Mom got sick. It was fun to be with family, but hard when everyone is so sick.

Family Cookie Party 2017

I am so thankful for the wonderful memories that we have made with our friends and family. I highly recommend that you consider hosting your own cookie decorating party this year. Below, I have included Ms. Cindy’s sugar cookie and basic icing recipes, so that you can enjoy these cookies as much as my family has each and every year.

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Sugar Cookies
By, Ms. Cindy

Ingredients
3/4 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Instructions
Mix all ingredients.

Cover and chill at least 1 hour.

Roll out onto floured surface.

Bake at 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes. 

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Basic Icing (for Sugar Cookies)
By, Ms. Cindy

Ingredients
1/3 cup butter
3 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp milk

Instructions

Blend butter and sugar.

Stir in vanilla and milk.