The Magic of Christmas

We made it.

The whirlwind of activity, shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking, crafting that led up to Christmas. We got through it. We had a pretty great Christmas, and now it’s over. I always feel a little sad, but also a little relieved.

Nora, on the other hand, is having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that Sprinkles (her elf) and Santa aren’t coming back anytime soon. Every day she asks about them and when they’re coming again. She doesn’t understand the concept of “next year,” so I’ve tried to find different ways to explain it to her—after your birthday, when you’re 4. I’ve tried to distract her by getting her to focus on another upcoming holiday—Valentine’s Day, Easter, etc. But still, every day she asks. I’m beginning to wonder how long she will. And this morning, she cried when I told her we are going to be taking down the Christmas tree. “I don’t want my Christmas tree to go away. I’ll miss my Christmas tree,” she tells me. So this year, I guess I am more sad than relieved that Christmas is over. Because my girl—she really did get swept away in its magic this year.

And magic it was.

I didn’t get a chance to post much this month, what with everything going on. So here is a big, long recap of Christmas in (mostly) pictures. Be prepared for one of the longest posts EVER. Oh, and a note: If you’re seeing blank boxes or black boxes in place of my photos, give it a minute. I know I’m not the only one who has seen a lag in load time for photos through Flickr. Apologies for any inconvenience, but I’m not sure what’s going on with them.

On December 15, we got together at my mom’s house so we could celebrate Christmas with my grandma and aunt, who always buy for our kids. It was nice and low key, and we took the opportunity to get the first photo of all five cousins, now that Sadie is a little more sturdy. :)

I have so much love for this group of kiddos. I can’t wait to continue watching all of them grow up together.

My grandma, with two of her great-granddaughters. All in all, my grandma has 13 great-grandchildren! So cool.

Then, the Saturday before Christmas, on December 21, we realized that hello, we are running out of time to take the kids to see Santa Claus. In the grand scheme of things, going to see the mall Santa? Probably not that big of a deal. But we’ve done it every year with Nora, and I didn’t want to suddenly NOT do it now that Vivienne is here. Vivienne needed her pic with Santa, too! It’s tradition.

So, we begrudgingly braved the mall on what has to be one of the busiest shopping days of the year. We waited in line for freaking 45 minutes, then got stuck in crawling traffic as we left the mall, but HEY. We got our photo of our girls with Santa. And no one cried. I’ll call that a success. You can tell by Nora’s face and body language that she was kind of freaked out, though. Ultimately (once she was off of his lap!), she did warm up a tiny bit and told him what she wanted for Christmas. Vivienne was calm as a cucumber. She was loving the fur on Santa’s cuffs, and was mesmerized by it, touching it. I had to borrow the official Santa photographer’s bells to ring to even get her to look up. If she’s anything like Nora, she’ll throw a fit next year and won’t sit there, so we have to enjoy it while it lasts.

On Christmas Eve, we ran around like crazy people, but did manage to get ourselves and the kids ready for Christmas Eve Mass in the afternoon. The girls wore matching dresses and I discovered that although these types of outfits cost more than you’d like them to, and they only wear them once (or maybe twice if you’re lucky!), they are worth every penny. Because they are SO CUTE.

We opted to have Nora skip her nap in order to make it to 2:00 Mass. Usually, she’s OK with skipping it as long as we’re DOING something, but apparently church was not her idea of fun, so she was kind of a tired beast the whole time. Thankfully we successfully distracted her with snacks (and she did like the choir) but the end of Mass couldn’t have come soon enough. I suppose some day we will be able to relax and enjoy it again, right?

When Mass was over, we headed over to my in-laws’ to visit for a little bit and let the girls open a couple of their presents. Nora, of course, was totally willing to cooperate for presents.

She did, however, end up hitting a wall and was no longer a happy camper. This is the best she could do for a “smile” with Aunt Teenie in front of the Christmas tree. Pathetic.

I can’t wait to show her this photo some day. It reminds me a little of the “angry mouse” photo from Halloween (although that one cannot be topped, I don’t think).

At least Vivienne was happy. I FINALLY got some good photos—on our good camera!—of her smiling. FINALLY.

And then we managed to snag a decent family pic before we left to head home:

On our way home, we swung by a couple of nearby houses that have nice Christmas light displays, including this one:

At home, we let Nora watch her favorite part of The Polar Express a couple of times (she really just likes the songs—particularly “When Christmas Comes to Town”). She sang and danced and twirled and jumped… and was just plain goofy at times.

She was really in love with “When Christmas Comes to Town” last year, and “sang” to the best of her abilities at the time. But this year, she really embraced it and learned all of the words and everything. We got several video clips of her singing throughout the season, but I hope I always remember the other times as well.

When she’d sing it in the back seat of the car while I was driving. When she’d bust out in song while we were waiting in the line at Joann Fabrics, and strangers smiled and giggled at her exuberance. When she’d run and hold Vivienne’s hand at the end of the song, because that’s what the characters do at the end of the song in the movie. It was all so cute.

After some singing and dancing, we took the girls up to take a bath, then put them into their Christmas jammies. We brought them back downstairs so we could do the preparation for Santa. I took Nora outside—despite it being about 10 degrees out there—in her boots, coat, hat, and pajamas in order to sprinkle the reindeer food (glitter and oatmeal) she made in our front yard.

We ran back inside to join Michael and Vivienne, at which point I helped Nora write a note for Santa, and put out cookies (that we totally taste-tested!), milk, and carrots.

Nora was so, so excited. And we were, too. But we were also stressed because um, well, I didn’t do ANY wrapping in advance of Christmas Eve. BIG MISTAKE that I hope to never make again. Needless to say, we didn’t have a nice, relaxing Christmas Eve. I was in the living room, Michael was in the kitchen, we were both just gettin’ shit done. There was wine involved, though, which at least made it tolerable. :) And thankfully, I HAD put together the play kitchen in advance—otherwise, we would’ve been pulling an all-nighter.

Around midnight, we heard Nora over the monitor. Her typical wake-up call: “Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?” I looked at Michael, wide-eyed, as we were only about halfway through setting up her dollhouse. Nevermind that we hadn’t even gone to bed yet. I ran upstairs, and once in her room, she told me, “I’m not tired.” I knew she had to be really excited, so I explained to her that Santa had not even come yet, and that she needed to back to bed until morning. She was actually pretty agreeable, but asked for a drink of water. I got her one, and then she settled back down without issue. Thank goodness.

Back downstairs, we finished up and I think we headed upstairs around 12:20. Not TOO shabby, right?

Morning came, and Nora woke up around her normal time—like 7:00ish?

She was understandably very anxious to get downstairs to see if Santa had come. She insisted that, while she was sleeping, she had heard him and his bells on our roof. So cute. Downstairs, I made her wait a few seconds while I ran into the family room ahead of her and got the camera set up to shoot some video as she made her entrance. She was obviously NOT happy about that, but I was quick and I was so glad I did this because her reaction was too cute. (Video to be shared at the end of this post.)

Nora had an absolute blast tearing into all of her presents. And Vivienne’s, too. :)

That Baby Einsteins treasure chest is what Nora had picked out to give Vivienne. She had, of course, already “told” Vivienne what it was like five times before Christmas (secret? What’s a secret?) but she was still so, so excited to give it to her.

We finished opening presents and let Nora play for a little bit before we packed up to head over to my mom’s for breakfast and more presents. My dad drove up from Virginia on Christmas Eve so he was there to celebrate with us, too! I haven’t been with my dad on Christmas morning since… geez, I was probably only 5 years old. Needless to say, it was nice, and I think he probably really enjoyed it, too. New tradition?

Sadie and Vivienne just happened to have matching Christmas jammies—so fun!

We wrapped things up at my mom’s house a little before noon and packed up all of the new presents… so many presents… to take back home. Once home, we put Nora and Vivienne down for naps (dual naps are so glorious, by the way—must make them happen more often in 2014, haha!) and got to work again. Michael and I rearranged the playroom to accommodate Nora’s new stuff, got everything moved around and cleaned up, started the sauce for dinner, etc. My dad and brother came over to hang out and before we knew it, it was time for everyone else to arrive. We hosted both sides of our family for dinner, dessert, and drinks.

Oh, and MORE presents. We exchanged with Michael’s parents and one of his sisters. My kids are very blessed.

We had a really nice evening, and it was really nice to relax FINALLY after a couple of days of just go-go-go.

Here’s a video with a few snippets from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day:

You’d think our celebrating would surely be over now, right?

Wrong.

On Saturday, December 28, Michael’s sister and her family drove up so we got together at my in-laws’ house to celebrate with THEM, too! And guess what… MORE GIFTS! This isn’t very different from how we normally do Christmas, but this year, it just seemed like so much. Not the events themselves, but the presents. Wowzers. I have some very, very fortunate girls. We are so grateful they have so many people who love them.

We exchanged gifts and had a nice lunch and just had a chance to catch up with everyone. The kids were crazy excited for all of the new stuff they got and it was a fun afternoon.

I do love Christmas. It was wonderful to have the extra time to spend with our families, and particularly with our girls. I love and cherish them so.

I hope you all had equally special holidays. On to 2014! :)