Kind of like Thanksgiving dinner...hours of preparation and about 20 minutes to eat it?
I do think that I did pretty good at soaking it up and enjoying the moments.
Hannah wasn't feeling so hot as was evidenced in these pictures:
We were having trouble getting her to eat or drink anything Christmas Eve or Christmas day. I was seriously stressing about having to take her to the ER because she got dehydrated.
But we all made it through and didn't go to the ER either.
Here is our family on Christmas eve, after church:
Matt's family has always been an "open all gifts on Christmas day" kind of family, which drives me bonkers. MY family always opened our gifts to/from each other on Christmas EVE, and then on Christmas morning we got up to see what Santa got and enjoy all of that. It was great. (Santa, by the way, never wrapped gifts in my house).
Somehow Matt won out on these two. Not only does Santa wrap gifts (damn it), but we get up Christmas morning, open our Santa gifts and stockings, and then open all of our gifts to/from each other too. THEN after a little while of relaxing, we load up and go to his parents house for lunch and more gifts.
I decided last year to start a new tradition so that we have SOMETHING to open on Christmas Eve. Brooke could open a candy bar and just be happy she had something to open. So on Christmas Eve everyone who is at our house for the evening gets to open a new pair of jammies, and the kiddos also get a new book too. Here we are in our Christmas jammies:
Matt and I were going to get iphones for each other for Christmas this year, but because of all the stinkin rules with ATT and the fact that we are not currently eligible for upgrades, we didn't do it. So we didn't really exchange any gifts this year. We each had Brooke pick out a gift for the other. Brooke bought Matt some batteries (AA, wrapped them herself, she was so darned excited), and she bought me a Santa ornament for my Santa collection.
I like gifts, I like gifts A LOT. I never ever want to do the "let's just get *insert big ticket item here* and call that our gift to each other." I want to open gifts. And this year, at our house, Matt and I didn't do that. But you know what? I was actually okay with it. I thought of the gifts that we gave to others, the "angel-tree" families that we helped out, and I was just happy. This year, more than any year before, I felt the true joy in the "tis better to give than receive" theory. It was so fun giving Matt's parents their Christmas gift. It was so fun seeing the girls tear through theirs. It was so fun knowing that a family had some presents they wouldn't have otherwise had, and warm jammies for their baby that once warmed my babies, etc. I really felt a contentment this Christmas.
And it was awesome.
I sure hope yours was too. Here are a few more pictures of our Christmas--
Brooke opening her DS from Santa. Man she was happy!
Brooke playing with the makeup kit from Gma and Gpa.
Being silly with Hannah's Mrs. Potato head stuff.
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