Christmas Traditions

It's that time again!  Christmas season has begun.  My Christmas countdown gives us 27 days to go.

As we work to prepare for this holiday, I have been giving a lot of thought towards traditions.  Christmas traditions have always meant so much to me.  Each little act that my family would do would help get me into the Christmas spirit.  There were some traditions from my childhood that I couldn't wait to continue on with my family.  One of these is decorating the tree.  We crank out the Christmas songs, fight with the strands of lights, wondering why only half the strand is working, the kids fight over who gets to put up the Christmas star, and we pull out the ornaments, remembering where and when we got each one, as we take turns hanging them on the tree.  Each year we let the kids pick out new ornaments for the tree.  We also try to get a new ornament from our travels.

I love seeing other people's Christmas trees.  Each family does this in a different way.  Some are like my family, you have a collection of mismatched ornaments that are meaningful in some way to you.  Some families have a tree theme, maybe you have many trees, all with different themes.  Some people have beautifully put together trees with ribbons and balls.  It's all wonderful, no matter how you choose to decorate.

One thing that I didn't anticipate in my youth was that as we get older, as new people are added into the mix, and as things change, traditions will need to be changed as well.  I don't fear change, generally, but messing with my traditions is something different all together.

This year marks the first time in my entire life that I am not sitting at my parents for Christmas dinner.  Our little family of five will be by ourselves this Christmas day and I don't even know what to do.  I tell the kids that we will develop new traditions, a new way of doing Christmas, but as of right now I do not know what that looks like.  I do know, as I have learned from experience, that I can not force new traditions on my kids.  There will be things we do, that I feel like the kids should love, but really I'm doing it more for me than them.

So, help me out friends!  What are somethings that your family does, or has done, that you love, that really put you in the spirit of Christmas?  How have you handled change to your Christmas routine?  How have you explained those changes to your children?

This holiday season will be full of change, full of memories, and full of new experiences, of that I am sure.

I'll leave you with a few pictures of our ornament collection.

Nativity star from Vatican City

Zach and mine's first ornament and Ryann's first ornament.

Penguin family I got when I knew our family was complete.

I love our little handmade ornaments!

I had a picture ornament made this year.  I love how it's nestled between
Iron Man and a bell from the Polar Express!

Zach and I received this little tree on our first Christmas as a married couple.  Zach's grandmother gave it to us as a gift and it has fit perfectly in every home we have shared together, 6 houses!

'Cause He's My Best Friend...

Today, Zach and I celebrate eleven years of marriage.  We are celebrating separately today because Zach is out of town and wont be back until tomorrow.  This week I have been reflecting over the last eleven years of married life and the two years that lead up to our wedding and would like to share some of those reflections with you, if you'll indulge me.

Anniversary picture from last year.

Zach and I met at church.  A friend from my McMurry days was working as Youth Director at my home church when I moved back to Plainview.  It was a difficult time in my life and I was feeling very lost and alone.  Tyson, my McM pal, invited me to come help out with the youth group.  I debated whether or not to go because, well, I was scared.  Teenagers? Scary! But, I was lonely enough that I went.  I met Zach that first night.  He was so young and weird, he came and sat beside me right away and made me feel welcome.  He's gifted like that.

Just a couple of kids, working with some kids.

The next year had us working together and forming a friendship.  I never really thought about dating him, he was so young, we would never be more than just friends.  However, as the months went on, and as we continued in ministry together, I saw more in him.  We didn't always agree but he always listened to me.  He was very immature but I saw growth.  We didn't have a lot in common, but we always had fun together.  Finally, I decided to let the age difference not be an issue and we started dating on July 4, 2004.

Our dating life had some up and downs but within a few months I knew he was it for me.  I was done looking for Mr. Right,I had found him in Zach.  We talked about marriage for months before he finally popped the question a year into dating on July 4, 2005.  He took me for a picnic lunch at the place we first met, the church, and asked me to marry him.  It was perfect.

Our first "couple" pic

Not getting any younger we decided to not have a long engagement and set our wedding date for only two months away, before Zach got far into his semester of school.  It was a stressful two months but our wedding was wonderful.  So many friends and family came to help us celebrate.  We had a very simple ceremony, again, in the place we met, followed by a cookout at my aunt and uncles house.  It was just what I wanted and I am so grateful for the hard work our families put in to help us carry it off.

We didn't have a ton of money so we honeymooned in Santa Fe for a couple of days before we had to return to work and school.  So begins married life.

Hanging out in Santa Fe with my 20 year old husband.

That first year of marriage was so hard.  We were trying to figure out what being married really meant.  We had to learn to put each other first, above everyone else.  We had to learn to communicate.  I'll be honest, there were moments that first year that I thought about calling it quits.  There were moments that we almost let our differences break us.

First Christmas as a married couple.

A couple of weeks after our fist anniversary I became pregnant with Zoe.  With that pregnancy came even more obstacles we had to cross.  Money, house, jobs, church, family, so many things that could have gotten in the way had we let it.  I prayed constantly that the Lord would prepare Zach to be a dad, worried that at just 22 he wouldn't want the job.  We were still working at figuring things out as a couple, would we be able to figure things out as parents?

He's the best dad.

It wasn't easy, but we figured it out.  We went the next year after Zoe was born, fumbling along best we could.  Things were hard and again, I had doubts.  The turning point happened one Sunday in May a year after Zoe was born.  I found myself in our bedroom, alone and fuming about something Zach had done.  I was angry and hurt and couldn't believe he was just going to let me be angry and hurt alone.  Do you know what I did?  I sucked it up, got out of bed, and calmly as I could, I confronted Zach.  I told him that I was hurt and why I was mad.  We talked about it.  I discovered that he wasn't aware of the transgression that had so upset me.  He apologized and we talked for hours after that.  I learned in that moment, that if I wanted to have a marriage with him that I had to humble myself and communicate my feelings to him instead of allowing them to build up and fester inside of me.  That was a game changer.

Since then many things have happened in our lives, many bad, so much more great.  We have grown together, built a family together, and continued in ministry together.  Zach, this kid I thought was too young for me, has taught me so much.  He's taught me to love baseball, to love generously (although he's still way better at it), to trust always, and to forgive earnestly.  We still have hard times, moments that we struggle through, moments of doubt, but because we are able to continue to enter into conversation together, to share those feelings, we have been able to persevere.

Eleven years.  It's not a huge amount, but, I know, without a doubt it will continue.  We have a lifetime ahead of us, and I am certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that we will share it together.  You see, even though I know it wont always be easy, it is so worth it to put in the hard work to ensure we have as healthy a relationship as possible.  I know that our kids will grow up believing in true love, because we have shown them what that looks like.

It looks like this.

FAQs, Bechtold style

Zach and I recently returned from a wonderful trip to celebrate our 10 year anniversary that will happen in September.  We have dubbed it our "tiniversary" since tin is the traditional gift for 10 years.  We have received alot of questions from friends and strangers about this trip that I thought I would address here.

1.  How could you afford to do this trip?  Or, the more common but less of a question: "Must be nice to be able to afford it."  Since Zach and I have been married we have only taken a handful of vacations.  Nearly all have been baseball related and the longest one we took was for three days.  We usually stay in questionable hotel accommodations and we watch every penny we spend.  Since we started planning our honeymoon, which was to Santa Fe, we agreed that for our ten year anniversary we would try and do something big.  So, about two years ago, we started planning.  We put back nearly every extra dollar we received, either through an unexpected job, or money we received at Christmas and birthdays.  In September we officially booked the cruise and we were able to make payments.  Our flights, which we also booked early, we used our tax refund to purchase.  That, coupled with my incredible "cheapness" enabled us to be able to afford this wonderful trip.  It wasn't luck, it was work and conscious effort on our parts to make sacrifices to be able to afford it.

2.  How could you leave your kids for that long?  It was hard, trust me.  I am grateful to have a wonderful set of in-laws who were able to watch our kids for that long.  There were many moments during our trip that I was racked with guilt and worry for leaving my kids.  We were also unable to be in contact with them much which made it harder.  However, with everything that our daily lives encompass: school, work, church, kids, family, etc., we needed this time together.  I loved the moments and experiences we were able to share together, Zach and I.  So many memories were made that are priceless.  Also, for someone like me, who has never been out of the country, I treasured this experience with travel.  I was able to check many things off my bucket list that at times, I was quite emotional about it.  I kept thinking, what if we had kept putting this trip off, to when we thought it was "more convenient" and maybe missed having this experience at all?

3.  What was your favorite part of the trip?  This is a tough one.  I asked Zach this question and he said that his was visiting Vatican City, more specifically St. Peter's Basilica.  He said, "It's amazing to think I'm standing on the same ground where many Popes have walked.  Where Peter was crucified."

There's Zach's feet, in the purple chucks, standing where the Pope has walked.

No doubt about it, that is cool.  As for the Basilica, no words can describe the beauty of that place.  You walk in and your jaw drops.  You think you know what to expect, but you just cant.

Seriously.

For me, it's hard to pin down the best moment.  Rome was awesome.  Malta and Sicily were amazingly beautiful.  I got to walk on the beach in Corsica.  The ship was lovely, the service was perfect, and the food divine.  What's not to love?

4.  What was your least favorite part of the trip?  Hands down it would be trying to find the hotel in Barcelona.  Here's a tip, don't try to save money when trying to get around a place like Barcelona, just go for the cab.  We went with a bus then the metro. Never again.  Taxi all the way.

5.  What cruise line did you go with?  We went with Royal Caribbean and I would highly recommend it.  We were on the Vision of the Seas which isn't a huge ship but large nonetheless.  The service was impeccable and we seriously have no complaints about anything about the ship.  

I mean, two desserts each!  What's not to love??

6.  Would you do it again? YES.  In fact, we would do this exact same cruise again.  There's so much to see in this world and a day at each of the ports was simply not enough.  The only thing we would change is we would like some friends or family to go with us and share the experience.  Not to mention, sometime our "selfies" were a little difficult to pull off and some willing hands to help us out with pictures would be nice.

See what I mean, that bleached out part behind us is the Trevi Fountain.

I'm going to begin now to save those dollars.  Who wants to join us?

Sunset view from the ship.