Family Friday: Themed movie night and Chore Points

4 years ago, I shared the idea of theme movie nights.  It is something we have occasionally done, but it is the new incentive I have to keep my kids on track with chores and school work.  Each week, I will put together a themed movie night.  The movie will be on Saturday and admission is by ticket only.    To get a ticket, each child must have all schoolwork done for the week, and have earned 30 chore points.  Chore points are awarded, 5 per day, when all expected chores are done for the day.  This allows each child a fair opportunity, by just doing what is expected of them, to attend movie night.  Additional chore points may be earned by doing extra chores on any given day.  When 10 extra chore points are earned, and the child's bedroom is clean, they will be given an additional ticket to invite a friend to movie night.  Additionally, extra chore points can also be spent in the "mommy store", where I have accumulated a variety of toys, stickers and such that the kids want.  The friend's ticket does not cost them any points, so the "mommy store" is an additional thank you for doing extra work. 

This weeks themed movie is going to be Rio.  For our activity, we are going to play soccer in the backyard, as my girls have been playing every day for the past few weeks and would love to get me out there more often.  Another idea for an activity would be to create your own Carnival costumes.  We are also going to have a Brazilian feast with Brazilian Black Bean Stew, over Brazilian Rice, with Brazilian Lemonade (similar to a frozen limeade) to drink and Brigadeiros (chocolate fudge truffles) for dessert.

I have already run this past the older girls, and they are super excited.  This particular movie night works out great for our homeschooling plan, too.  We will be studying birds next week and Brazil the following week, so this is the perfect movie to tie the two units together.

Family Friday: Holiday Traditions

Traditions are those things that we do purposely at regular intervals and create positive feelings. They help us connect with those who participate in them with us and, in the case of handed-down traditions, help us to connect with previous generations. Traditions can be started at any time and ended at any time and they can be altered to meet your needs. Growing up, we always went to choose our Christmas tree as a family, including my grandparents. The time came that my grandparents stopped coming with us and we stopped going to the local tree seller and started going to farms to cut our own, but we still made a day of it as a family. Two years ago, my husband got a great deal on an artificial tree, and while I am not thrilled with it for many reasons, it is silly to go buy a real tree now. We have now set that tradition aside and will replace it with a new one. Today, I wanted to share some of our other holiday traditions and learn about your holiday traditions.

Last year, I shared about our traditional "wrapping party", aside from that, here are some of our other holiday traditions:

- Every year on Christmas Eve, we drive through a certain neighborhood that goes all out with holiday lights. The kids love it and it is such fun to see what changes each year. There is also some of the neighborhood kids that set up a stand and sell hot chocolate and popcorn, so we buy some of that too. Last year, we had some live deer cross right in front of our van and the kids got all excited and thought they must have been Santa's.

- When we decorate the tree, we play Christmas music and drink hot chocolate.

- Baking Christmas cookies is an all day activity with me and the kids. They love helping in the kitchen and it helps ease the load.

- We read the Christmas story from the scriptures before opening gifts on Christmas morning.

- We attend a living Nativity every year at a local church and discuss what Christmas is really about.

Another tradition, I heard that someone does is to choose a special gift for Santa each year, such as a warm hat or nice boots. They leave the gift for Santa which is then rumored to be donated to a local shelter. I think this is a wonderful way to help others and truly honor the spirit of Santa Claus. I know others who throw a birthday party, complete with cake, for Jesus. What are some of the traditions you grew up with and follow today or what are some of the traditions you have started with your family? If you are interested in starting new, meaningful traditions, there is a great article here.