Christmas Wrap-Up

It's hard to believe it's the last day of December. One might think that, as a stay-at-home mom, I have all the time in the world to prepare for Christmas. Before being a stay-at-home mom, I would have certainly thought that. Not the case, unfortunately. At least not for me. I've felt like December was a month-long marathon-run, not that I've ever ran 26.2 miles (but I've walked that amount AND MORE, thank you very much!). Despite keeping Greta fairly sequestered from the outside world because of limiting her exposure to germs (prematurity issues, doctors orders, blah blah blah), we've been go-go-go! I'm not complaining though. It's been fun! Celebrating the birth of Jesus is a magical thing in itself, but I must say it's all the more wonderful when celebrating it with a child.

Christmas was wonderful. Just a few days before Christmas, my sister from Chicago came down with her three children. For a couple days, we had a packed house -- two of my sisters! Four cousins! Greta! Me, Eric and Payton, too. Greta had a blast playing with her cousins. She loves to be entertained, and they love to entertain, so all in all, it was fun!

For Christmas Eve, we had Eric's family over for our pajama soiree, a tradition we started just last year. Greta had practiced opening gifts just a few days earlier, and she got more practice Christmas Eve. She definitely "got it" more than she did last year, but she still seemed a little overwhelmed by it all.

We woke up Christmas morning to a tree surrounded by gifts. We'd swore we'd never be THOSE PARENTS. We'd talked about just a couple gifts. Yep, we did. Then, the Elmo microwave screamed Mama's name while she was shopping at Target, and then Mama fell in love with Plan Toys, and then Amazon got a little too friendly with all their silly Prime free shipping deals. Damn them. Anyhoo, opening giffts on Christmas Day was a mini-marathon of the larger December marathon, but what I'm saying is A 17 MONTH-OLD TAKES FOREVER TO OPEN 40+ GIFTS. You live and you learn.

It was a wonderful holiday. Lots of baking, spending time with family, online shopping, sniffing of the fresh Christmas tree, sipping hot cocoa and napping with the dog. God is good, and we are blessed.