deep breath

December has flown by with all the holiday preparations culminating this week in an over-the-top Christmas event. I barely kept up ...but we survived, however...even better than that, we conquered.

I love decorating our house for Christmas. Our tradition is to haul out the 10+ crates from the basement on the day after Thanksgiving and deck the halls. We have a real tree (this year a Fraisier Fir) as the "main tree"...which we supplement with a couple other decorative trees in other areas of the house. Every year we buy an ornament for the "main tree"...a blown glass ornament in the shape of something that somehow signifies the year. This year, we were blessed with our little Hazel and so the ornament we chose is a pink baby carriage. In years past, we've celebrated various events with our ornament choice...like the birth of our other kids (a pink baby block for Vi and a blue bootie for Calvin), a doctor bag the year Marcus had 2 knee surgeries...an owl with a graduation cap the year I graduated with my PhD...a lighthouse for the year we went to Hilton Head. Its such a treat to hang these and remember their significance...one of my favorite parts of decorating. We also have a small artificial tree in our upstairs hallway that we decorate Mardi Gras style...with purple, gold, and green lights and all our medalions from the parade throws as ornaments. We even top it with the Mardi Gras bow we used to hang on our apartment door during the carnival season when we lived in New Orleans. The tree itself was the first tree Marcus and I ever bought...the one we had for our first Christmas after we married. We were so broke then...I remember it was a hardship to lay down the $60 to buy this little 6 foot tree. I'm so glad we've saved it...and that we decorate it to memorialize our time in New Orleans...it makes me smile.

Between our decorating extravaganza and Christmas day, there were cookies baked, a trip to Chicago for a holiday party and family Christmas with Marc's parents, 2 Christmas pageants, parties at work, a Daisy Scout cookie exchange, holiday dress shopping for the girls, christmas cards sent, meal planning and grocery shopping, 2 trips to various stores after 10 pm, starting and finishing handmade presents, many online orders, marathon wrapping in the wee morning hours, counting and recounting gifts, so much laundry...its exhausting just thinking about all that we crammed into this month.

It was all worth it though. We've already enjoyed lovely visits with family...and on Christmas morning, we had 2 overjoyed kids at the sight of their stockings and the Christmas tree. After we set up the tree with all our presents, Marcus and I went to bed and waited for Santa to come. Once morning arrived, we were up first...waiting impatiently in our bed for the kids to wake, creep out and take it all in, and excitedly run to us and tell us what they found. They were late sleepers (huh?), so we finally got started with our Christmas around 8 am. We like to enjoy the presents as we open them...so that the kids attach a value to each one. We put together puzzles, played games, cuddled with new animal friends, ate goodies, well into the afternoon. I think we were finally finished opening around 4 pm. We took breaks throughout, to indulge in our Chirstmas quiche and other food, as well as prepare our Christmas dinner. My mom joined us for the feast and the kids went wild showing all of their trappings.

When we finally got the kids to bed, Marcus and I enjoyed some peacefully quiet moments, reflecting on the day, and all the excited anticipation that led up to it. We took a deep breath, knowing that all the last minute preparations, hectic planning, and finishing tedious details were behind us. We congratulated ourselves on successfully creating a boatload of Christmas memories for the kids...and realized that Christmas is more wonderful than ever...now that we have them.