Tales From a “GREEN” Minivan

I’m a little disappointed with myself as I really thought I was going to get to blog more during my month off. I’m pretty sure most of you were aware that I took the month of December off.  Things seemed to be piling up (quite literally) all around me and I needed to take a break from my screen time and focus on things that have been neglected around the house. The first part of the month was extremely busy with many appointments and general household CHAOS!  My dad was over for a few days to help get some unfinished projects around the house completed. Mid-month I got to take a little weekend vacation with my mom and Andrew’s mom down to Maine to do a little Christmas shopping without any of the kids.  It was a nice break and we had a great time without the men around! Then later that week I took a quick impromptu trip down to Halifax to get my BIL to an important appointment at a specialist.  The weather was very bad and winter driving does not bother me, so we loaded the van with Finn in tow and spent the night at my BIL & SIL’s home in Dartmouth then headed straight back to Saint John right after the appointment.  So sorry I didn’t get the chance to meet up with some of my friends in the area, but I was only in town for less than 24 hours!

After that busy week the next thing I knew Christmas was quickly approaching, luckily I was pretty much ready, most gifts were wrapped, I had already picked up the food for our Christmas Eve Seafood Feast.  Here’s a few pics from the evening and a tradition we have in our family every year!

Sweet Finn posing in front of the tree

The Miller’s looking a little Norwegian

Matching Jammies

Christmas Day was our usual tradition of getting up and putting on our…jammies!  Yes we spend the day in our PJ’s, we go to my dad’s for brunch and then to my mom’s for turkey dinner.  This year, I’m not sure what happened but I din’t get a pic of us in them!

Boxing Day was a hoot!  While we were in Maine we saw some red Christmas t-shirts at Old Navy in every size!  I thought wouldn’t it be fun to wear them to our annual family get together?  Andrew’s mom then saw them and said why don’t we get them for all 13 of the Miller’s that would be attending, so we ripped through the shelf and found 13 ranging from size 2T all the way to XL!  Here’s a shot of all of us!

We finished off the evening by getting a shot of the 6 Miller Cousins in the matching PJ’s

Not sure what we’re going to do for our New Years Celebration, we have a few invites, but I think it may be a low key gathering and perhaps a little Rock Band 2 for the Wii involved!  Andrew and I are ADDICTS!  It’s so much fun!

It’s finally here…December that is, and tonight we kicked it off with a new tradition!  One idea stolen from  fellow co-worker Tracy and the other usurped from my other co-worker Helen!  Such brilliant ladies!

So you’re probably wondering what we did well I’ll do better and show you!

We decided to burn an Advent Candle.  This has been a tradition of Tracy’s family for many years and I loved it!  Last year just before Christmas but too late for the countdown I saw some of these candles marked down so I bought them.  Funny enough Tracy had trouble finding them this year so I brought 2 out to her this afternoon so she would have them in time to burn this evening.  As you can see in the photo there are numbers down the candle and each evening you burn it until you reach the correct number.  The kids thought this was great!

My next stolen idea was while the candle was burning to grab one of our Christmas books and read it!  We have many Christmas stories so why not read a new one each night!

I’ll need to make sure I grab the rest of the books to put in the stack for tomorrow, of course one story was never enough so I may have to look for a few more in the coming weeks. I like this idea much better than one of those calendars with the no-so-tasty chocolates in them.  I think the kids did too!

and yes the boys need haircuts, it’s on the list, just trying to make it as close to Christmas as possible..lol

It’s officially December and the countdown is on!  Last night we started a new tradition by attending a local event called the Harbour Lights Tree “Unlighting” Ceremony!

Every year since 1997 our local CBC Radio morning show (Information Morning) organizes the “Harbour Lights”Campaign. It’s a fundraiser to support our local foodbanks for the time between Christmas and Easter, which is a time of the year traditionally that the foodbanks have a hard time getting donations.  CBC decided to start this fundraiser beginning Dec 1- 19 and light the tree up with a $2 donation for each light, as the donations come in the tree gets brighter and brighter.  Once they reach the $40,000 goal the star on the top is lit.

Last night when we arrived the tree was completely illuminated.  We all gathered directly below the tree in the large circle (my camera was having a technical difficulty so I’m waiting for a friend to pass along some photos) and they had hot chocolate and timbits for the kids and coffee for the big people. The Saint John Choral Group was there and sang some carols, as was CBC for Kids star Super WHY?  Finn loved him!  It was amazing to see the tree up so close as it’s on Port Property and you normally can’t get that close.  Once the SJ Choral ran out of tunes, they cut the lights!  The kids are now excited to see it light back up, and after we made our donation they were anxiously waiting for our lights to appear on the walk back to the van!

I think we’ll make this a new annual tradition!

As soon as I get those photos I’ll post them!