A holly jolly Christmas, 2014

By Linda, on December 25th, 2014

Christmas, my favorite holiday. What’s not to love? Centuries-old traditions, passed on from generation to generation, beautiful music, sparkling decorations, family and laughter and presents. But above all, a sense of kindness, joy and togetherness, shared between our little family quartet, our broader family and friends we love so, our community, strangers on the street – to me, it is the most wonderful time of the year.

I love sharing this with our babies. Nora was much more aware of the festivities this year, pointing at lights and ripping gifts open and dancing to Christmas music. Elliott was wild about it all. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer was his anthem these last few weeks, singing it on the top of his lungs most times of the day. He often talked about Santa and the goings-on at the North Pole, everything he admired was something for his Christmas list, and he asked every single morning in the month of December if it was yet Christmas.

To celebrate the big day, we decided to hold off on gifts until Christmas morning. This is a departure for me, as my family always opened gifts on Christmas eve, a tradition I’ve always loved. But with working until Christmas eve and the kids’ early bedtimes, we decided to do Christmas morning presents this year. It worked beautifully. We spend Christmas eve morning at the Science Center, a fun Christmas outing. I made a yummy Christmas eve dinner, and then we got the kids to sleep by 7 pm and did our elf duties. Christmas morning started off with a wake-up call by Nora Goose at 5:30, who was patient and waited another hour for her big brother to arise before tearing into the gifts. Next year she may not wait as nicely 🙂 We opened gifts, had breakfast on the floor with our new toys, and had dinner with our cousins nearby. Elliott and Nora were champs with all the activity. Elliott was the sweetest boy all day, sharing his toys with Goose and giving all of us lots of hugs and kisses. Nora rolled with everything without much fuss, loving her new toys and only eating a little paper!

I would normally be sad to see Christmas winding down, but J and I still have a long break ahead of us, with travels to the Midwest for a family reunion on the horizon, and days head playing at home with new toys.

And now, a tired, happy mama is headed for bed. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

A few of our Christmas decor…