This blog is my place to vent and share resources with other parents of children of trauma. I try to be open and honest about my feelings in order to help others know they are not alone. Therapeutic parenting of adopted teenagers with RAD and other severe mental illnesses and issues (plus "neurotypical" teens) , is not easy, and there are time when I say what I feel... at the moment. We're all human!

Friday, December 25, 2009

New Traditions

New Traditions - guess that's an oxymoron.


I love the traditions we have now. Three gifts like Jesus received. Jesus' birthday on Christmas Eve complete with presents to Jesus and cake. Christmas Eve presents (book and PJs). Unwrapped Santa gift, and waiting until parents are awake to open the rest of the presents one by one. I love the silly clues I write on each child's present and making them guess what's inside. Cinnamon roll braided Christmas tree - yum!!
This year we tweaked a little.


We tried a new variation on Jesus's birthday cake (can't see the layers in this picture). Didn't taste good, but next year it will. *grin* I guess it was more along the lines of an Easter cake, but I liked it better than just a plain old birthday cake. The bottom layer of the cake is chocolate with chocolate frosting for our sins. The next layer is strawberry for the blood Jesus sheds for us. The top layer is vanilla, colored with green food coloring for the everlasting life he gave us. The top two layers covered with white frosting to symbolize our new purity. And that's covered with multi-colored sprinkles to symbolize joy and celebration nothing, we just wanted yummy sprinkles!

After writing our presents to Jesus, I read them out loud, and then we prayed. The kids initiated going around in circle and praying about what we are thankful for (is this starting to sound like we're getting our holidays mixed up - Thanksgiving, Easter, birthday, Christmas...??).


Anyway, this was a great Christmas. I'm only mildly dreading the next week and a half of the kids being home from school.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Baking just isn't my thing so bravo to you for making something that involved layers! LOL Sounds like it was really wonderful even with the problems!

Tracy

shastastevens said...

We've found out that Jesus really likes a simple chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. He thinks it goes really well with coffee. ;)

I admire your creativity. Somehow mine goes out the window when I push the "survival mode" button.

Anonymous said...

I'm thinking it was the green food coloring that didn't work. (Free association: Green. Lime. Red. Strawberry. Pie? Daiquiri! Oops.)

Try choc w/ cherry frosting covered w/ whipped cream w/ little green plastic xmas trees stuck on it?

I'll go to bed now.

marythemom said...

It is hard for me to understand, but Bear actually doesn't like chocolate! Oh he'll still sneak it, but he gets upset if you make it for the family. Otherwise believe me it would be chocolate fudge cake!

Part of the reason the cake tasted so awful was that I made a white cake from an old Betty Crocker cake that had absolutely no taste. With the "red" strawberry layer I added strawberry flavoring and strawberry marshmallows so it wasn't too bad, but the green layer looked and tasted like green playdoh. The chocolate layer was a "fireman's cake" which is fast and easy, but tastes better warm. The only white frosting I had was cream cheese, which is normally delicious, but in this case was not a good combo with the other flavors or lack thereof.

All in all it was one sweet that was left out and Bear did not steal any in the middle of the night (that should tell you how awful it was!). We'll most likely be throwing it away. *sigh*

Marythemom