Christmas 2007

What a Christmas! Looking back a few years, I never would have thought that Christmas could be so incredibly fun, special, miraculous and just plain awesome. Holidays are such an emotional time - for many reasons. It's so easy to lose sight of the real meaning of Christmas with all of the prep, chaos and commercial craziness surrounding the holidays. Every time I got overwhelmed by my "to do" list I tried to remember to step back and remember the true meaning and then things seemed to get back into perspective. Today was one of my favorite days, ever.

The kids loved everything Christmas – although they didn’t really “get” a single bit of it. The lights, music and excitement were just plenty for them this year. And the toys, an added overwhelming bonus. They loved having family around and hammed it up whenever they could. It was amazing to see how much love they were surrounded with - and how their eyes lit up with the simplest things. They were smothered with attention from their Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins. What fun it was to watch.

Christmas Eve day was spent with Chuck’s Mom and Sisters family (with cousins) which was great. The boys followed around their big cousins watching every move they made with the big boy toys. They both insisted in snagging the trains off of their tracks and pushing all of the noisy buttons on their cousins toys – which didn’t go over too terribly well at first. But then their cousins gave them a little leeway when they realized that they didn’t really understand “sharing” all that well yet. Luckily nobody got beaned in the head over stolen toys. The kids had a ball & got some great things – and the car was over half full upon departure.

For the evening, we headed over to my brothers for dinner and more fun with cousin Emily and my family. We had a wonderful dinner and lots of fun awaiting Santa’s arrival. The kids exchanged gifts with Emily and got one of the favorite gifts of the year, a new basketball hoop for bigger boys. Despite the new toys, we spent most of the evening peeling them off of the fireplace that they incessantly tried to climb – funny how they had more toys than imaginable but only wanted to climb on those things they are forbidden from climbing. Boys will be boys.

As bedtime rolled around, the kids started fading into pre-bedtime mode; we packed up, changed into jammies and made our way home. Their new Christmas jammies were a little on the small side – no idea why since they were 18 month sizes. They were quickly deemed their “scuba suits” - I have not ever laughed quite as hard as I did when we finally got them squeezed into their Christmas suits. They found it very entertaining as well and laughed at each other, while we belly laughed at them.

It was a full moon evening and we looked for Santa & his reindeer all the way home. The car was jam packed and I couldn’t even see out the back window driving home – the toys & baby gear were overflowing. By the time we got home, the boys were just about toast – they went down with a thud.

We woke up early this morning and waited for Daddy to get up. *see previous post about the “usual” timing for this daily event. We mustered him out of bed around 8am and went down to see if Santa had indeed made a stop at our house. Low and behold, he did come and he left lots of toys for the little boys. Both JD & Cole were a bit overwhelmed at the sight of the loot – JD gave it the ole’ chevy chase look and turned for his playroom with his old toys. Cole took a little more time investigating things and touched everything he could. He eventually followed suit and retreated to the playroom with his old familiar things.

One of the gifts that they got from Aunt Susie & the kids was a tent/tunnel combo. It is really made for a large room or outdoors. But of course we felt the need to put this thing together, despite that we don’t have an area nearly large enough for such an adventurous toy. Let me just say that we will have sore knees in the morning from crawling through this thing all morning. The kids absolutely had a blast in it – as evidenced by the photos. EDIT***During the night, I was awaken by what I though was an intruder in the house – until I realized that Gus was also enjoying the new tents & tunnels. He was like a kitten again running up and down the tunnels and skidding out on the hard wood floors.

We went out to the cemetery after lunch to visit Grampa Joe & Calvin; it was a beautiful day and I know that Cal was looking down on his brothers. In the afternoon, Grammy & Grampy arrived with more toys and fun things – including big boy bean bags, puzzles, books and some more ride on toys. We had a wonderful afternoon at our house and a yummy chili dinner to finish off the day.

We are so fortunate & blessed. Words cannot describe how thankful and gracious I feel for this holiday season & all that we have to be thankful for. As we roll into the new year, we continue to remember those who have lost loved ones or who could not be "home" for Christmas. And we remember those who are less fortunate and do not have family or friends to spend their holidays with. Part of the emotion of the holidays is remembering those who could not be with us for whatever reason or those who have left this earth. Those loved ones are never too far away in spirit; and if you're lucky, you can feel them nearby during those times when you miss them the most. To all of our out of town family, you were all in our thoughts as well.

Now, back to the grind. That's the hardest part!