Monday, January 9, 2012

An UNordinary Christmas...

Everything started great. We had a beautiful month of December, where the boys enjoyed all our traditions, from setting up ALL our Christmas decorations inside and outside to making Bratzelis and attending our annual events (Mount Vernon bells Christmas concert, our white elephant gift exchange...), not to forget about our daily mini devotionals along with our advent calendars...


The boys were so excited for Christmas morning to come and we were all ready... Adam ran to the presents under the tree (and there were many!!) and started opening speedily his. But he started having a bad attitude envying his brother's gifts  or complaining about what he had received... I have to admit that it made me sad to hear theses negative comments. In the meantime, Antoine was thrilled with his toy animals and was playing with them, leaving aside his other gifts.
After a delicious breakfast and a little bit of clean-up, we had a great time together playing with their board games and the boys had fun discovering their new toys.

Christmas was Sunday this year and we had church at 3pm. By the time we put the boys down for their naps, they had been arguing and fighting. Then they resisted taking their nap and kept coming out of their bedroom. I had had it by that point and told Mark that the boys should not be able to keep their Christmas presents and that we should pack them away until Adam and Antoine would earn them with their good choices...
You might be thinking that it is quite a harsh treatment...
Mark and I even wondered at some point that night if it was too severe of a consequence for their behavior... Well, we really want them to realize that our Family Laws are in our home for a good reason and not just to decorate our walls. We are now going back to Basics and focusing on Obedience, Peace, Permission, Respect and Order. We have created a behavior chart to evaluate how their day has been and earn one present back per 3-score day!! This is quite a motivation for the boys and we have seen quite some progress in their attitude!!