Christmas

Christmas and New Years have come and gone – where did the time go?

I am currently writing while sitting in the hallway because my “baby” just moved up to a big boy bed – now we are working on staying IN the bed.

I wish I could write that our Christmas and New Years Eve celebrations were just like a storybook – but that would not be entirely true…

 The cookies are kinda like our life - looks messy but still tastes good =)

Christmas week came with more appointments then I believed possible. My beautiful sister graciously helped and when the rest of my family came we were still moving at the speed of light to accomplish all those “Christmassy” tasks. Tylenol and Sippy cups kept kids moving - Christmas Eve was a beautiful day – fun with family, friends, food, and bounce houses! But Christmas Eve gifted me strep throat and a stomach bug built to kill. My sweet hubby spent the early Christmas morning hours at urgent care and the 24 hour pharmacy.

Christmas morning started late and lasted the next few days. Christmas was a new concept in our home - an unfamiliar event. Our children are not from a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas – but rather from an environment where little was worth celebrating. One of my littles said, "Mommy why do people hang their socks up at Christmas time? That's gross!!" 

The excitement was overwhelming and illnesses contained the excitement I expected Christmas to bring.

Our beautiful kiddo stockings made by Aunt Kristie

  

I confess I had to spend an afternoon grieving the loss of MY Christmas dreams – after all this was our first Christmas as Mommy and Daddy and we wanted everything to be perfect!

I wanted the kids to be excited and running around – yet Christmas was pretty anticlimactic.

Yet in a way – this is how we tend to do things - a little different.

Not wrong. Not horrible. Just different.

But my kids learned about Christmas. We made birthday cupcakes for Baby Jesus’ Birthday – so what if we didn’t make them till the 29^th?!

They learned the Christmas story. They seem to understand that the Bible stories we read our unique - they loved our interactive 7 day Christmas story from Aunt Cille! 

New Years marked our 3 month milestone as parents – woo hoo! Exciting, right!? Yes and no. New Years Eve was one of the most challenging days I have had in a lonnnng time. 

The kind of day where you go to bed at night feeling as though you have failed majorly in the patient and loving parent department. 

I am glad that was LAST year!

So was our first Christmas perfect? Nope! But is my Christ perfect? Yes ma’am!