Home for the Holidays

Tammi Jones Tanaka
Dec 29, 2020
2 min read

Updated: Apr 23, 2021

My five-year-old son MJ wants to take over my husband Michael’s contracting business and “build houses like Daddy” when he grows up. In his letter to Santa this year, he asked for a toy house that looks like our house and a Santa with a sleigh and reindeer. In the year 2020, home for the holidays means celebrating with our family of three instead of traveling and being surrounded by extended family. To embrace the situation and make this season festive in its own way, I decided to center his love of building as a theme for the Holiday Season.

My Christmas planning began with the search for a Craftsman style house with modern furniture. First I found a perfect three-story townhouse, then a wooden furniture kit, fireplace, and a few simple Christmas decorations.

Next, I found a Santa with a sleigh and reindeer.

Gingerbread is MJ’s favorite Christmas treat, so he really enjoyed decorating a gingerbread house and baking cookies as we prepared for the holiday season.

MJ labeled the stockings "to make sure Santa knew which one was his."

Bedtime can be a challenge on Christmas Eve, with little ones too excited to go to bed. Setting up the bedroom for Christmas helped ease the way.

Time for Santa's helpers to get to work...

Meanwhile, Santa enjoyed a bite of our homemade gingerbread cookies.

Christmas Morning was right around the corner.

The new house was a hit! MJ loved having a house to work on "just like Daddy." I told him the story of Baby Jesus' Daddy Joseph the carpenter, and how they used to build together too.