Merry Christmas 2018

I must be catching up for the fact that I didn’t blog as much this year, considering my multiple posts in the last few days. I’m okay with it. Because this continues to be my best way to document life and someday I know I’ll be glad that I did.

Moving on to Christmas Day, 2018. Like a crazy person, I was up till 4:00am, finishing up last minute things. So God bless our family who graciously let me sleep in till a good 11:00am. As I’ve mentioned before, Christmas day for our family is pretty simple since we don’t live by any extended family and we’ve realized the value of a nice quiet day for just the four of us, especially after an incredibly busy season. Also, God bless Ellee who was the only one excited about me breaking out the camera this year.

We started out our late Christmas morning with stocking presents. Funny enough, Ellee did most of the shopping for us all this year as well as the wrapping of the many stocking gifts (she did everyone’s but her own). Which is kind of weird, considering it’s always been my job to do both but also kind of awesome.

Afterwards, we enjoyed Swedish pancakes, which was a tradition of Jeremy’s family as well as mine growing up.

Afterwards, we cleaned up and slowly proceeded to the gift part of this day. Christian did not get many gifts (I’ll explain in a bit) but he did get some new wall art, that at first glance he thought was a poster of Stalin. For the record, it wasn’t and was instead the Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness poster.

Ellee’s best gift of the year for her Dad was a series of coupons. The first were about her treating her Dad to a Starbucks coffee or two. But then we laughed when we realized quite a few were for fun adventures for her and Dad, that she assumed he’d enjoy, but also pay for.

Jeremy bought himself some new ping pong paddles to share with Christian which have already gotten some good use today.

And since this is something that I will always want to remember, it should be noted here. This year, Christian decided that he didn’t want any Christmas presents from us. It could be because he’s 14 or it could be because as much as his sister loves Christmas and the Hallmark Channel’s version of it, he wasn’t a fan. Either way, he told us to take the money that we would have spent on him and send it to the orphans that our family supports in West Africa. I gave him a few weeks in case he changed his mind, but he didn’t, so that is what we did.

That being said, I didn’t want to not get him a present. So I thought about what I could get him that would be meaningful. And it turned into me asking some of our family and good friends to write letters of wisdom and encouragement to put into a book for our son. I didn’t ask everyone I knew, but in the end, had about 26 letters from some pretty important people who have had influence in the life of our son. And what people wrote… it brought tears to my eyes and had just incredible meaning for Christian. He received letters from some wonderful friends who have known him his whole life, from his best music teacher ever, from his volleyball coaches and from many others. And I know this is a gift that he loved and one that he will remember for a very long time.

This girl got all her favorites. It’s a tiny bit sad to think our kids have mostly outgrown the toys part of Christmas. And to be honest, I even had her help pick out the clothes part of her gifts this year, because she’s reached that stage as well. But in addition to a big pile of clothes, she got a Starbucks gift card, a mini drone, and ice skates and was a very happy camper.

Quick side note. Our family has always celebrated the Jesus’ birthday part of Christmas. Because celebrating a Savior who was born to a world very much in need of one, is something so true and beautiful. At Hangtime this year for Christmas, we talked about wants and needs. What we wanted for Christmas versus what we needed. And while many of the gifts that we give or get are things that we will love for awhile, what we truly need is what will last. And for our family that has always been and will always be, Jesus.

For Jeremy this year, I skipped all the little things that I usually get him in addition to a big thing and piled all the money together so he could get a new watch because his old one (that I got him a few Christmases ago) has stopped working well. He was pretty happy. And he got me a nice big pile of my favorite Lush products as well as those two certificates below. One being a a 3 month membership to Hot Yoga which almost made me cry, because I’ve taken the last few weeks off and have missed it terribly. For the record, Hot Yoga is my absolute favorite but it is not cheap and with it being Christmas and there being many things to buy I knew I needed to let it go for a bit. But the second, was a trial membership for him, which means that he is going to finally come with me and try it out and this is something that I NEVER thought would happen but something that I ALWAYS wanted to happen. So it was a very, very good present and it made me very, very happy.

I also need to give a shoutout to Coconut Lime being the best scent of all time and this body cream that is absolutely amazing. It came from my friend Debbie’s shop, Island Bead and Trading which is located right in Eastport and it smells like heaven, if heaven was a tropical, coconut-y lime paradise.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and eating lots of good things. Our Christmas protein of choice was a nice filet mignon that did not disappoint. Ellee mastered the art of her mini drone and thankfully did not fly it into anyone’s eyeballs.