On Christmas Eve this year we got coffee & headed to the park. When we got back home, we walked around the neighborhood delivering Christmas cookies to our neighbors & made some Christmas crafts. Since church was in the evening for Christmas Eve, the kids took an early nap before heading to church. Our church does not have child-care during the Christmas service so the kids got to come to "Big Church" with mama & daddy. I will be honest: I could not sing a single Christmas song because of the HUGE lump in my throat that if I released I would be a HUGE puddle of waterworks. I just felt the Holy Spirit, & watching my kids feel it just took everything out of me. So I stood, watched, & listened to the blessings of God for the service (while I tried desperately to keep from having to touch-up my mascara lol) This was the first year that we let Dutch hold the candle during Silent Night & he thought that was the best thing in the world. He lifted the candle along with everyone else without instructions and just acted like such a little gentleman. Ellis was pretty impressed with the pens & prayer request cards ;-) After service we got dinner at a Chinese restaurant (I promise we referenced A Christmas Story as often as possible), got hot cocoa, & drove around looking at Christmas lights. When we got home we got in our special Christmas jammies, read our last Christmas Book-A-Day book, which was the REAL Christmas story, laid out cookies & milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer (and a special dictated letter from Dutch), before heading to bed.
Christmas morning, the kids were up around 8:30, which is about regular for them, but gave mama and daddy time to start breakfast, turn on the Christmas music and get showered and dressed. The kids had breakfast, we read from Luke 2, & sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, and then let the kids open some gifts. I made a big Christmas dinner that we ate at 2 and then just lounged around in our jammies and playing. It was very slow & relaxed.
Christmas with little ones is far better than it ever was for me as a child, and I love taking the holidays slow so that I can absorb every last moment. It was a wonderful Christmas. How was yours?
