Merry Christmas from the Just to Claireify family to yours! I didn’t take many pictures but above are e and A playing with some new toys from yesterday 🙂
This Christmas was a busy one for us! It started two weeks ago when we celebrated Christmas early with my dad and not-so-baby brother. They spend the holidays in Italy with my stepfamily, so we had brunch and a gift exchange with them the day before their travels.
On Christmas Eve, we had a long video call in the morning with Eric’s family to open gifts and chat. In the afternoon, we headed to church for the Christmas Eve service. The kids had fun at childcare, and we enjoyed some time with just baby K and singing carols (even though I spent most of the service in the cry room feeding K–such is life with a three-month-old, haha).
After a quick dinner, we hopped back in the car and over to my mom’s house for cookies and reading “The Night Before Christmas.” My mom has a beautiful pop-up version of the book which my sister and I loved reading every year growing up, and it’s fun to be able to continue that tradition with our kids now.
On Christmas morning we had a healthy breakfast and the kids opened their gifts from us. We don’t do Santa (I know, I’m no fun–I just don’t care to keep up an elaborate story like that, haha) but we give four-ish presents per kid. “Read, want, need, wear.” I enjoy gift shopping for them in moderation, and four feels like a good number given how spoiled they are by all of their grandparents 😛
Eric and I don’t often exchange gifts at Christmas anymore as both of our birthdays are so close to it (end of November for me, mid-January for Eric), but Eric did surprise me with a nursing-friendly sweater dress and a journal this year! And I got him a new wallet, which he badly needed.
After gifts, we headed back to my mom’s house to exchange gifts with my mom and sister–and eat some coffee cake, another Christmas morning tradition. Little e got a wooden tool kit and little A got some “cooking” supplies, which they’re still playing with this morning as I write this!
We gave my dad a quick call to say Merry Christmas too.
After lunch and nap back at the apartment, we drove back to my mom’s house for dinner. My extended family from around town were all there and we had such a nice evening with a full fancy dinner spread; a huge platter of cookies, including our homemade peppermint bark and gluten-free gingerbread bars; and just finally spending some quality time together after two COVID Christmases.
The pandemic and having multiple small children during those years has definitely reminded me to be grateful for the little moments. I am very lucky to still have four living grandparents, two healthy parents, and all these people and more around to celebrate the holidays together–my life has been this way since, well, my whole life.
It’s one of those things that deceptively feels like it will last forever, but it won’t. I don’t want to miss these simple and wonderful times longing for something newer, bigger, and better. I don’t want to be so caught up in the hypotheticals that I take for granted the beautiful things that are right in front of me.
I hope you and yours had a wonderful, restful holiday too!
xx Claire