christmas time

Since Thanksgiving was early this year, it felt as if we were given an extra week of Christmas which felt like such a gift.  The kids went to Columbus a day early to help Grandma prepare and so Tyson could play with Shane and that provided a day for me to prepare their rooms for Christmas.  They knew we were decorating when we came home that weekend after Thanksgiving but they didn't know that I had bought special Christmas sheets for their beds.  So I decorated their rooms and changed their sheets and pillowcases for the new festive ones and added as much Christmas as I could with the exception of actually decorating their mini trees because I know how much they love that part.  I couldn't wait for them to see their rooms when we arrived home and I will never forget their reaction.  They were all completely surprised, so many squeals, laughter, and thank yous.  It was precious.

We got right to work decorating the rest of the house that night and it was so much fun that as usual, I didn't want it to end. Our favorite part is always reminiscing as we look through ornaments and deciding where they should go on the tree.  The kids have their smaller tree up in the kid zone and they only hung ornaments made by Aunt Debbie and Aunt Beth on it this year while we hung all the others on the bigger downstairs tree. At least we thought we hung all the others but I knew some were missing and they turned up in a box in the basement about a week before Christmas.  Those will be the first we hang next year.

Jason took extra time off this year and we made the most of every minute.  It actually felt slow for those two weeks he was off.  It felt slow and beautiful.  We had plenty of downtime making room for cuddles and conversation along with plenty of adventures mixed in.  He cooked us some of the most amazing meals ever and we even got to go ice skating. We watched our typical Christmas specials including Elf and Christmas with the Kranks. We cut out and decorated sugar cookies, put together a gingerbread house that kept wanting to fall apart, made puppy chow and buckeyes that the kids delivered to neighbors, went out to eat, did our annual minivan express night, attended a Christmas Eve service at our church, and the kids were even able to go caroling again with neighbor friends just a few days before Christmas.  We had our candlelight Christmas Eve dinner of (frozen) popcorn shrimp and our cinnamon rolls Christmas morning complete with a candle lit on one so we could sing "Happy Birthday" and blow out the candle for Jesus.

A new tradition of the kids having a sleepover in the little girl's room on Christmas Eve began when we moved into this house 2 1/2 years ago.  This is such a big deal to them and they get really excited about it but this year, they turned out to be a little too excited.  Could have been the hot cocoa with tons of toppings they had at church that morning, the loads of sweets they ate that day, or the bottle of orange crush I thought it would be fun to let them have at dinner.  All of the above plus an extreme level of excitement are most likely all to blame for the fact that I heard footsteps at 4:00 am and went upstairs to see that the light was on in the bedroom.  I went in to find them all hanging out, eyes wide open, happy as can be.  They had been up since 2:00 am just partying it up together.  So, much to their dismay, I made them all go to their own beds so they could at least get a couple hours of sleep.  They were devastated but all fell asleep within a few minutes.  I was freaking out a bit thinking that Christmas day would be ruined because they'd be too tired to handle it.  I finally fell back to sleep after worrying about every possible scenario but assuming they would sleep in after all that partying nonsense.  6:45 am was my next wake up call.  So they got a few hours of sleep on Christmas Eve and thankfully, Christmas day was far from ruined.  We had a wonderfully sweet day.  They were losing their minds by dinner so they did have an earlier than normal bedtime but they were all ready and fell asleep immediately.  Crazy kids.

Jason and I played Christmas Vacation in our bedroom as we wrapped the kid's gifts, which has become a little tradition for us.  We went crazy this year and wrapped a few days before Christmas Eve which shocked us both.  We have so much fun laying them all out and deciding what order they should be unwrapped.  We put numbers on them so the kids know the order and each kid had their own wrapping paper as well.

The kids get really into giving gifts to each other and us.  They spend their own money at their school holiday shop or we take them to the dollar store and Target.  They wrap them all themselves and get so excited to give that they can hardly stand the wait.  It's my favorite part watching them light up as they give their sibling that well thought out personal gift.  And this year Violet got a set of 3 BFF necklaces for Avery and Mia which was so stinking cute.  Also, this year Avery made every member of both sides of our family a perler bead ornament.  They were the cutest things, so well done and thoughtful.  They were a huge hit.

The favorite gifts ended up being Avery's stingray stuffed animal, Tyson's mini indoor basketball hoop, and the little girl's microphones.  They played with those microphones ALL DAY LONG which meant loads of entertainment for the rest of us. A few weeks later and Tyson still can't get enough of his basketball hoop which Jason set up for him in the basement complete with 3 point and free throw lines.

We traveled to Scottsburg the day after and to Columbus the next weekend and stayed one night at each soaking up the extended family time.  The kids enjoy their cousins on both sides and we have a great time just being together.

My heart is bursting with gratitude for another precious Christmas time with my people. So much goodness.  I always have a hard time letting it go but I have to remind myself that there is so much goodness in our everyday if we have our eyes open to notice.