Awesome things about the Christmas season

First of all, I feel the need to say that I am writing this post in a kicking and screaming sort of way. I've been feeling especially scroog-y and bah humbug-ish since before Thanksgiving. In an effort to not let my attitude rub off onto my kids, I truly made an effort pretty much every day to spread Christmas cheer to those around me, even though I wasn't feeling it myself in even a tiny amount. I really credit my mission of finding something each day to find joy in for getting me through the past month. Each time I wanted to go curl up somewhere and pull a blanket over my head, I would remind myself to "dance in the rain."

Now, I will briefly write about the things that were awesome about the past few weeks. Things that really did help pull me out of my grinchy mood (have I now covered all the Christmas fun suckers?)

I've already shared pictures of much of our baking. We baked A LOT. Many batches of pretzel/hershey kiss/M&M bites, cookies, toffee, peppermint bark and puppy chow. Homemade rolls and breakfast casseroles and cheesecake. Oh my. While it was all awesome, I'm afraid to put myself on the scale. Much of what we made we gave away, but we ate way too much of it, too. Time to put away the pile of clothes that seems to be a permanent fixture on my treadmill and actually USE it for something other than a dust and clothing collector.

I've also already shared pictures of the girls and I making fuzzy sock cupcakes, but I have to once again post this rare picture of sisters having fun together. Lauren is usually too cool to have her picture taken with her sister, and I love this one. It's awesome.




My kids were really awesome at Christmas. None of them really asked for much of anything. Well, except Rachel. I could have easily spent my entire Christmas budget on her alone. But, we managed to get some gifts that they all just loved, and it was easy to see that they were truly grateful and excited for what we got them. I sat here on Christmas morning in the midst of all the wrapping paper and boxes and realized that one of the biggest gifts from the past two difficult years is that our children are truly grateful for what they have. I know there must be things they wish they had, but it is nice to know that they appreciate what they DO have. It was kind of a pain buying gifts for them this year since no one would tell me what they wanted, so we were able to pull off a few surprises, which was a lot of fun.


I didn't make the big Christmas Eve dinner that I usually make because we were getting up early the next morning to drive to Illinois to spend Christmas with Tony's family. The kids always love having a big breakfast on Christmas morning, too, and I wanted to get it all prepared and put in the fridge. I also still had most of my gifts to wrap. So, in light of all that, I didn't want to do the whole turkey feast. I did make a nice dinner, but I thought it would be fun to decorate the table all fancy so that it would make our shredded beef sandwiches and homemade mac and cheese seem a bit more festive. I had a blast doing that, and I made Tony and the kids stay in the family room watching a movie (in the dark I might add!)while I decorated the dining room as a surprise. They loved it, and here are a few pictures:








Okay, so that was more than a few. I just really had fun doing this. And the best part is I spent NO money. I took a few ornaments from my tree...some glassware from my china cabinet, a piece of greenery from a box in the basement, some misc. glittery things that I don't even remember why I bought, and a strand of white lights that half the strand was burned out. And of course, my Christmas dishes. I'm kind of sad to put them away.


Christmas Eve in general was awesome. It was snowy, and I still had a few quick things to run out and do in the morning, but I was home by 11. Tony had other things to do, so he was gone most of the day. I turned off the tv, cranked up the Christmas CD's, Rachel and I baked some cookies, I drank peppermint coffee and prepared dinner, all while watching the snow fall peacefully.

Christmas morning was awesome. I was awake at 3, and the snow was still lightly falling. I watched a cute movie on tv called The Accidental Christmas, and at 5:30, I decided to go outside and take some pictures of the lights in the snow. It was so pretty that for a moment, I actually liked snow. That rarely happens. But how could I not think that this was pretty?




As I walked around my front yard wearing pajamas and Rachel's boots, I was praying that no one would drive by and wonder what that crazy lady was doing out in the snow before dawn on Christmas morning in her pjs.


We spent Christmas with Tony's family for the first time ever. We usually spend Thanksgiving with them, but not Christmas. It was especially awesome because Tony's brother and sister from Omaha were there, and I haven't seen them in many years. Tony's sister and I used to be pretty close when we lived there. She is 12 years older than me, and for a long time was like an older, wiser sister who kind of took me under her wing when Tony and I were newly married and I was so far away from my own family.

Here's a picture: (Tony's sister is the one next to me on the far right):




Here's a picture of Tony's brother from Omaha. Lauren challenged him to a game of horse, so the day after Christmas, they all went to the Y, and Lauren won $20 from him. He says he let her win, but I doubt it.




I met his new wife for the first time, and she is awesome. We had a lot of fun cooking together and hanging out watching movies with Tony's sister. In the photo above, she is the one kneeling on the floor.

These past few days since Christmas have been pretty awesome too, even though Lauren was sick, and now I am sick. (Have I said "awesome" so many times that you are wishing someone would have given me a thesaurus for Christmas?)

While I have had the usual housecleaning and laundry to do, they have also been lovely days of:

Lots of coffee and hot chocolate and hot tea drinking




movie watching(sorry, no pictures of that)

knitting



That isn't as ugly as it looks in that picture. For some reason, I could NOT get a good picture that shows off this really soft fuzzy yarn. It's my first ever project that isn't a rectangle or a square. It is actually about 1/3 of a huge shawl scarf. I've made so many mistakes that it's not even funny, and if I'm lucky, I will have it finished by July.


And of course, reading




I'm going to have a hard time going back to work on Monday. I have thoroughly enjoyed being home. My house is clean. Laundry is semi sort of caught up. My house smells good from all the baking. And I am wishing that I could hibernate for the winter.

You may or may not have noticed that I said "awesome" in this post about 399 times. Well, if you read this blog, get used to that word! Beginning on Saturday, I'm going to try something new here. Every day (well, hopefully every day anyway, I may miss a few here and there) I am going to try to write one thing that was awesome about the day. I won't be writing these loooonnngggg posts every day, thank goodness, right? But, I am going to try to consciously be aware of finding at least one wonderful, awesome thing every day. Make me stick to it, okay?