Christmas 2020 Was Amazing!

 

I was pretty excited about Christmas. I had started shopping in September because I was worried about things being shut down or prolonged due to COVID. With every paycheck I did a little shopping so that by Christmas my kids, husband and family members would be taken care of. We mailed so much out this year because we weren't getting together with my husband's family. Usually we go there Christmas Day but this year was going to be different. It was nice. We kinda liked not having to get on the road after opening gifts. I felt bad that we wouldn't see my in-laws but always hated that I had to drag the kids out after they opened their gifts. 

This year with the kids being older I did my second year of having a different colored paper for everyone. No tags and they don't know what their color will be in case they find the wrapped gifts or wake before us they don't get to shake all their gifts trying to find out what is in it. 

I was really excited about my stocking this year. As a teacher I often get gifts from my students which I give to my daughter who will check it for homemade goods. If there are goods we put that out for all of us but if not she sticks it in my stocking so that I have something to open on Christmas Day. It isn't hard for me to hold off. A lot of my co-workers open as soon as they get them but honestly I love waiting. I don't get many surprises and it is so sweet of these families to give me gifts from their children. They are so sweet and really appreciate the love and care their kids get out the center. This year was overwhelming. I love opening them on Christmas morning and thinking about my students as I open each one. 

My son woke ahead of his sister so I asked him to sit by the tree. Lighting

 was an issue but I don't mind. We had lost power at about 1:00 AM and got it back by 7:45AM thankfully. I felt bad for the power company guys who had to leave their families to work on lines but I was so thankful for their service that the moment the lights came back on, I wrote a thank you online.

She looks crazy but in my daughter's defense she had just opened her eyes 5 seconds before this photo. We always start with stockings but I wait for mine so that I can make a list after each gift to help me with my thank you cards.

I love this picture of my husband. He is a big baby and loves a lot of gifts! I mean who doesn't?! He gives me some of my favorite gifts ever except that time he gave me a frame and a candle and not even a candle I would have picked for myself but my most epic gifts have come from him. 

He looks like he is holding a baby! Come to think of it, I don't think he ever looked like this holding our kids. LOL. He is beyond excited because most of the things in his stocking were from his WISH LIST. Does everyone else do this? I love when people have wish lists. It makes shopping for them so much easier.

I love how my kids try to put their paper in the bag after they open a gift.  I always worry about things getting lost so have trained them to keep the area clean. It started out that way but didn't stay like this for long. 

My son tends to open quicker than my daughter and over the years he always thought she had so much more than him. I always count to make sure they are equal. He was trying so hard to go very slow and did but she really loves taking her time and looking at everything. Showing me. Talking about it while he just opens and moves on. He did well. It took all his patience although he was very quiet so probably focusing on keeping it S L O W. 

This was a new comforter which I noticed was still not on his bed tonight.

Awww Jinxy hung out with us while we opened the gifts. The other two cats hung under the bed I guess. He definitely was very interested in the papers and boxes.

From my seat it was hard to get all three of them in the picture. I managed if I stood behind the couch. The living room is pretty small.

I had asked for a laptop and a Fitbit. I knew the laptop would cost but figured Fitbits are under $60. NOPE he got me an iWatch which I thought about taking back at first because they are so expensive and I know that the Fitbit does so much. The laptop wasn't what I had expected either. I would have killed for an iMac because I wanted to do more editing than what I do on my iPad but he got me a Dell which is really nice too! He also helped me load some video editing software that I purchased after researching. Hopefully I can learn it. 

As the kids have gotten older. I always feel like they aren't getting a lot of things. They would say differently but I guess things use to be so much cheaper when it was just toys. Now I don't even get to shop in the toy aisle. SOB!

I have to say I was very spoiled this year from my preschool kids. It was completely overwhelming and this weekend I made sure to write out 25 thank you cards! These families are very special to me and they were so sweet. My favorite gifts were the long notes some of the moms wrote about how much we love their children and how grateful they are that they KNOW and feel their children are loved. YES! I love their children. They are my daytime kids and I think about them when I am not with them. It is beautiful that the parents actually feel that too! As a teacher that is what you hope for. I want them to know their children are being taken care because that is what I would want as a parent with a child in daycare. I just treat them like they are mine. 

COME on! Can you even imagine? This is so generous!

My favorite gift had to have come from my daughter though. She wishes her daddy would take her shopping for me so she can pick something out and wrap it but he hasn't yet and she is 15 so she makes me something. 

She made US this very sweet card.

AND on the back of the card...

How did she know I would turn it over?

A few hours after cleaning up, I went into my bedroom to put some stuff away and she ran in with this very special treat.

Is this not adorable?! So sweet!

All in all it was an amazing Christmas and I am typing this right now on my new laptop! 

OH BTW at the end of the night I said, "the only thing we didn't do was take a family picture." The next thing I know, my husband has a selfie stick and we are all in the living room posing for a photo. It was a quickie but I got my photo nonetheless. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas filled with laughter and love!

Memory Rewind - February 11, 2010

This week for Memory Rewind is a photo from a few years back.

This is what my family looked like before Handsome and Goddess made their stunning appearance.

My Man and I had two animals. The cat, Sandi (see her eyes on my shoulder, I was making sure she didn't block my baby belly. That is Handsome in there and it was important to have him in the picture too!) came into the relationship with me. It was her and I for many years before I met My Man. The dog, Zoe came into it later on. After a breakup with a real shit head, My Man (a really good friend) and I moved into a house with his Bass player friend Dan (one day I will talk about the band). One day I went to a pet shop and checked out this really cute dog. I talked to the dog for two days telling it I would be back after talking to my "roommates". On the day I had Ok'd it with them, I headed down to pick up the really cute dog. Unfortunately for that dog, "Zoe" was there in all her 1 pound glory. She was the smallest, cutest, fluffiest thing I had ever seen and I had to have her.

So, here we are...me and my little family in the last Christmas before Handsome's 1st. No other Christmas before his 1st compared but this was a great one because of the belly!

Christmas Traditions That You and Your Children Will Love

My 25 days of Christmas starts next week and my kids have started talking about all the decorations and movies they can't wait to see.

I had heard about this tradition a long time ago and was waiting for my babies to be older so I could implement it.  You open a gift every day until Christmas so that the holiday season lasts instead of it being over in one morning frenzied morning.

December 1st I brought out a basket filled with 25 wrapped gifts (they are things we already own). I wrapped up every single movie (DVD and VHS) and book we opened that had a Christmas theme. There was also a new ornament for the tree thrown in for good measure.

I explained how every day we would open a present, alternating days, one day Handsome could pick one and the next Goddess.  The kids were really excited and so was I.

If we opened a book, we read it. If we opened a movie, we watched it. It was really exciting to watch them decide which one would be opened. Sometimes they decided together and other times it was a solo choice but they loved it.

Target has very small rolls of paper in their $1.00 section and I had stocked up on when it was on sale a few years back. A little goes a long way when you are wrapping books and movies so it only took 1 and 1/2 rolls to wrap everything.

Here are my babies last year when I first presented the basket.


Holidays in my mind should be strong on tradition and memories and less on the actual gifts. I hope that the kids look forward to this tradition every year and that hopefully they share it with their own families when they have them.

Ruby Tuesday - Christmas Morning After The Chaos

Head over to Mary's Ruby Tuesday Meme by hitting the button above.

Opening the gifts is fun but I love to see the kids sit with all their presents. Getting them to sit is impossible but the pictures are always fun to look at over the years. My parents used to take a picture like this every year and I still love looking to see what I got for Christmas waaaayyy back in the day.

My Christmas Gift!

No, you can't see it! It's not one of the gifts with the beautiful wrapping paper under my tree. It was the camera that took the photo.

A Canon EOS 50D Digital SLR Camera!

This was the first photo taken and I have a lot to learn.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.