An Ok Christmas?
Christmas time stretches for a month in our family nowadays. The tree goes up right after Thanksgiving and the decorations start trickling out each week. My wife loves to make things look festive and even does the lights in the front of our house. I think decoration-wise, it is her favorite time of the year and it is also our kids’ as well.
When the real Christmas was getting close, the kids kept asking to open gifts. It get tiring saying no all the time, but at least they are direct in what they want and willing to voice it out loud! My 7 year old daughter E loves December because she has both her birthday and Christmas to look forward to, which means tons of presents (and I also remind her that it is really about great family time). My 5 year old son C is also excited for the same reasons and I think his 1 year old little brother L is just excited about things changing and happening.
On Christmas Eve, my wife’s extended family usually have a huge gathering. We bring our presents and do a huge gift exchange. We also do a smaller white elephant for the adults and a gingerbread house decorating contest. The contest got so competitive that everyone forgot about opening gifts for a long time. I think E and C also downed a lot of candy since decorating supplies were dwindling faster than people were actually using them. L was just having fun taking me up and down the stairs and he really wanted to hang around me, which was sweet. We had fun being silly in the various rooms he was exploring (although a set of Hulk fists scared him in one of the rooms!).
I reminded E and C that we shouldn’t argue over presents and we needed to try and share or talk things out if a disagreement starts. Every year when they get new toys for Christmas, they spend the next few days arguing about everything imaginable. That was a holiday tradition that I wanted to break. After we opened gifts and it was time to head home, there were just happy and tired kids in the car.
On Christmas, the kids opened more gifts and had gift opening fatigue. We didn’t get through everything and I even lost a gift for the kids (which was a set of dominos that they needed to set up one my one to tip over). In the middle of the gift opening, my wife organized a Secret Santa exchange where we all made our own gifts for the person we got. I ended up getting my wife and I painted her some flowers using water colors. Lucky for me, she loved them and the pressure was instantly lifted from me.
My wife went all out and made a real playable domino set for E. It was crazy and made out of clay. She also helped C make a clay bus for L and helped L make a clay hand imprint for me. E made a bunch of gifts for C, which included some birds, sweet notes, and pictures. E and C also made stocking stuffers for my and my wife that included a handmade notebook and some cute written notes for us. I also wanted to point out that there were really any large fights. It was shocking that we got over that hump this year.
Overall, I definitely appreciated the time together and I was really grateful that there weren’t fighting matches between the kids. The break has been enjoyable outside of a few dust ups (partly because we are all a bit sick), but other than that, it was an ok Christmas (actually more than ok!).
