Christmas

 I feel like Christmas is not just one day - its an entire month of gathering gifts, wrapping gifts, visits from the elf, making cookies, receiving lots of goodies, getting fat, mailing Christmas cards, watching Christmas movies, and so on.  Of course, NONE of those things have anything to do with the REAL meaning of Christmas and just add to the stress.  Every year I promise to make the next season less stressful, and every year I fail miserably.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE so many things about Christmas - I especially love my children's excitement.  There is just something about Christmas that stirs up my anxiety and the need to make my children's Christmas experience perfect. The anxiety doesn't go away until all the Christmas decor is put away and life returns to normal. 

This year as Santa was getting things ready on Christmas Eve, Jason went from normal, to incapacitated with illness within an hour.  He was struck with the flu and it hit hard.  He was shivering, drooling, and even whimpering in his sleep.  Luckily, he felt good for our fancy Christmas eve dinner, but I was really sad that he was going to miss Christmas.   Me, being extremely paranoid of germs, was terrified of getting sick and pretty much just focused on contamination all Christmas lol.  Christmas morning he made his way out of bed to watch the kids open gifts and open gifts himself, and then went back to bed.  Luckily, he has a crazy immune system and he felt better within a day or two and thankfully no one else got sick. 


Here are some pictures for my old lady self when I'm 85 and want to look back on my life.  :-)


My attempts at getting a nice picture before church -

Cutest hot chocolate!

Not going to lie - wrapping gifts is not one of my favorite parts of Christmas ;-) However, seeing them all nicely displayed under the tree is a very welcome sight!

Santa came!!  Santa brought Blake got a power action pickachu and a lego Pickachu.  Chase got three Lego sets - two that he has been wanting, and one surprise set.  Wesley received a keyboard. 

Chase had a VERY lego Christmas.  He was one happy kid!!!

Blake, on the other hand, had a very Pickachu Christmas. 

 Normally Wesley is really hard to buy for.  He usually doesn't like toys, and his taste is a bit different than most kids.  However, this year he had a pretty good list so I was able to pick gifts a little easier. 

I got a kayak!!!  I also got these pretty sweet flip flop slippers from a friend. 

We didn't do much on Christmas.  In fact, I think everyone stayed in their PJ's all day.  Not the most exciting Christmas, but I always welcome a good day of relaxation!!