Sweetest Traditions

Thanks for sharing your awesome Christmas traditions with me! We may borrow a few for our family. Loved, loved, loved them!

Here is a picture of one of our favorites: baking gingerbread cookies.

I love this tradition.

It represents freedom to me.

The gingerbread cookie baking session was one of the first places that the Lord began to break the chains of perfectionism I'd forged for years. At the time, I didn't recognize what was happening, but I am so very grateful that it did.

You see, I had dreamed of being the mom who created the Martha Stewart Christmas for my family. Visions of neatly decorated cookies wrapped in cellophane and tied with silver ribbon danced in my head. The treats produced in our kitchen would be culinary masterpieces, awaiting their photo op in Better Homes and Gardens.

Then I made the cookies with a three year old.

Things were not going as planned.

The gingerbread men were misshapen aliens. More icing and sprinkles were on the floor than on the cookie.

After a few minutes of stress, I did something I'd never done before.

I backed off and let her do it.

We had fun, and we've had fun ever since. Every year, a friend or two join the fun and the flour flies. Only now they are old enough to clean most of it up themselves. :-)

Every year I can taste the freedom. I like it.