We had a wonderful Christmas season, and are sad that today is Will's last day of Christmas break. Tomorrow will be just an ordinary winter day and the girls and I will be missing the extra set of hands, playmate, and adult conversation. It has been nice to reflect back on the last couple of weeks this afternoon. This year, with a baby experiencing health issues and an active toddler I knew that I needed to make things as simple as possible and ensure that the activities we chose to do captured the holiday spirit with minimal stress. I read several great books on the subject including Celebrate Simply by Nancy Twigg, Hundred Dollar Holiday by Bill McKibben and Unplug the Christmas Machine by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli. To cement this concept even more with me, Will told me about a radio morning show he had listened to that discussed how different Christmas would be if guys were the ones in charge. It struck a chord with me and I realized that for some reason a lot of women (myself included) feel the need to make Christmas perfect. After reading the above mentioned books and then hearing Will tell of what he heard on the radio, I felt I was finally free to let go of my need for the 'perfect' Christmas and focus instead on creating family memories and just enjoying the season.
In search of more meaning and less stress, I decided to forgo making my annual holiday cookies and opted instead for some scoop and bake ones to have on hand for company and Santa. This worked out great and we still had tons of baked goods from our generous family and friends. I know there will be Christmases in the future where I will have the time and energy to bake my favorite holiday cookies, but for this year it was a nice change. I still got my baking fix however with a craft project Lucy and I made for our family and friends - salt dough ornaments. I cannot rave enough about this project as it definitely scored a 100% on maximizing meaning and holiday spirit without sacrificing sanity and joy. Lucy enjoyed it too, and it was a fun way to bake with Lucy without worrying about germs, taste, and perfection. Here Lucy is below in the various stages of making the ornaments. The project was simple enough that she was able to do every step herself with minimal interference from me.
Thanksgiving weekend we put up our Christmas tree. Lucy didn't really remember the Christmas tree from last year and was super excited to help us hang ornaments and sing along to Christmas music. Emma also enjoyed hanging her first ornament up, as you can see below.
One of the things I also looked at skipping this year were my annual holiday cards that I send out to family and friends. Will has never liked this tradition, as he is usually the one licking envelopes and stamping envelopes at midnight two days before Christmas. He was also quick to remind me that if guys were in charge of Christmas there would be no Christmas cards. After really thinking it over, I decided that I valued sending cards to my family and friends and it was worth the time and energy involved. There is something about sitting down with the prior year's address list and taking stock. Adding new friends and new family members to the list is always fun - this year we added several great new friends and even several new family members (shout out to my first niece Ellen!). It also is a nice way to remember those that we said goodbye to over the past year. Taking my grandma's name off of the card list was emotional, but it caused me to stop and remember some great Christmas memories with her.
We of course continued with our tradition of decorating Luke's grave blanket with homemade ornaments as it is a great way to involve the entire family in heaven and on earth. This year we painted birds. While Lucy was painting, she kept saying things like, "I hope Lukey likes my ornament Mom." "Mom, I know Lukey is just going to love this ornament!" And the most heart wrenching, "Mom, I wish Lukey could see my ornament I made for him." Lucy took this project very seriously.
And yes, painting without a shirt IS more inspiring - and less messy! Here we are below having a family hug while admiring Luke's freshly decorated grave blanket.
Another continued tradition was a visit to Santa. Last year Lucy was very uncertain while she sat on Santa's lap and so I ended up holding her next to him. She didn't have a problem though, telling him very clearly that she wanted Elmo stuff for Christmas. This year, it was all Will and I could do to get her within 10 feet of Santa and if we got any closer she would scream, "OUCH!! OUCH!! OUCH!!" This kind of creeped Santa out who was quick to tell the people nearby that he was NOT in fact hurting her. Emma didn't really care one way or the other and sat on Santa's lap while watching Lucy's dramatic display with some curiosity. After Will backed a safe enough distance away from Santa, Lucy did tell him that she wanted Gummi Bears and suckers for Christmas. I will have to readdress this tradition next year to see if the value to stress ratio is worth it.
On Christmas Eve we went to Will's parent's house for brunch and to exchange gifts. This worked out great as the girls are at their best in the morning and we were still able to come home in time for naps. While they were taking their naps, Will and I got an early dinner ready so that when they woke up we could bathe them, don Christmas dresses, have dinner, and then head to Christmas Eve mass.
Usually for Christmas Eve mass we go to the church we were married at in Detroit, or whatever church is closest to us since we have to get there so much earlier to get a seat. This year we decided it would be nice to spend Christmas Eve at our church and I am so glad we did. It was absolutely lovely and it is a tradition we are starting from here on out. Here Lucy is below next to the nativity before mass.
When mass was over, we drove around a bit and looked at Christmas lights, then headed home and had the one item I had made special for Christmas Eve - mint chocolate chip ice cream, paired with a batch of the scoop and bake chocolate chip cookie dough from our local fruit market. Let's just say that the stress to joy ratio was not worth it here. The stress began when I needed to find creme de menthe for the ice cream recipe. It was two days before Christmas, and I had tried four different stores and they were all out of the green minty liquor. It didn't help matters that I was fighting a horrible cough and was also looking for a certain brand of all natural cough syrup that was missing as well. Not until I was standing in the liquor aisle of Meijer with Lucy, feeling completely anxious because Will was circling in the car outside with a crying Emma that I realized that perhaps I should write this one off as a loss and call it a day. As I was waiting for the manager to check in the back for the creme de menthe, Lucy kept asking rather loudly, "Mom, is this where your cough syrup is? Mom, where's your cough syrup? Mom, I see your cough syrup! There it is! Creme de menthe!" I received several looks from complete strangers stocking up their holiday liquor cabinets as I tried shushing Lucy and explained that creme de menthe isn't cough syrup. After all that stress we ate the ice cream Christmas eve and no one but Will really liked it. To make matters worse, it had completely slipped my head that I have been avoiding dairy because it upsets Emma's stomach when I nurse her. Yup, I was up all night with Emma, cursing the creme de menthe! Epic fail on value to stress ratio! AND - Lucy still calls cough syrup creme de menthe!
After the girls were in bed, Will and I sat down to write our annual Christmas letter to Luke to put in his stocking. It is at times like this that the pain of missing him is the most raw. What would it look like to have all three of our children in their Christmas jammies in front of our tree? Luke would have been three this Christmas and I can only imagine how excited he would have been, wondering what Santa would bring him in the morning and interacting with his sisters.
On Christmas morning we all headed downstairs together, thanks to the baby gate at the top of our stairs. Lucy was super excited and got right down to ripping open presents. At first she assumed that all of the presents under the tree were hers, but once she realized that some were for Will, Emma and myself, she was equally as eager to help us open ours as she was hers. We couldn't help but notice that she seemed disappointed after she opened each gift however. When I reminded Lucy that she still had a stocking to check out, her eyes lit up and she ran to see the full stockings hanging from our stair railing. Here are some pictures of the sequence of events. The first picture is of her screaming so loud she bent in half...
Then, looking up at the stockings...
Then patiently smiling for a picture before she got her stocking.
After she dumped the contents of her stocking out and saw that Santa had gotten her Gummi Bears and suckers she started jumping up and down with excitement and said, "Santa listened Mom! Santa listened!" After that her entire demeanor changed and she excitedly ingested sugar while playing with her new toys. Lucy also found Emma's new toys to be as good as hers. Here they are below opening presents.
As expected, Emma liked the paper more than her toys.
After we cleaned up the paper, Emma seemed content with her new toys.
When the last present was opened, we had a Christmas breakfast of cinnamon rolls from a tube from Trader Joe's (this is the first year I didn't make my traditional Christmas sour cream coffee cake) along with an egg casserole that we had made up the night before and popped in the oven when we came downstairs in the morning. We stuck a candle in a cinnamon roll and sung happy birthday to Jesus. Joy to stress ratio - priceless.
Instead of attempting naps before we headed over to my parent's house for the day, we decided to pack up our over-stimulated, and in one case, over-sugared children and make the drive to the cemetery in hopes they would sleep on the way. Our plan worked and both kids conked out in the back, giving Will and I a quiet trip to the cemetery. I would have wished for the girls to join Will and I at Luke's grave, but we left them asleep in the car next to Luke's grave. When we got out at the cemetery we were met with an unexpected surprise. My grandma's headstone had arrived! This caught me off guard and as nice as it was to see her headstone, it was also extremely emotional seeing her name next to my grandpa's and Luke's graves. It made her passing more real than it has been - and more final. And it is the finality that hurts so badly. I still can hardly believe she is gone.
After drying my tears we got back in the car and headed to my parents house. This year it was just my parents and siblings, minus my brother Joe who lives in Florida. It was also the first Christmas with the new generation of cousins. Here is Lucy below with her two new girls under the Christmas tree - her cousin Ellen and sister Emma! I can't wait to see them grow together and become lifelong friends.
Stay tuned and I will do a separate post soon of the girl's holiday portraits as well as Emma's 9 month pictures.
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