Christmas

We had an amazing blessed Christmas. The kids were full of wonder and joy. Here is a play by play.

Christmas Eve day - My parents and sister arrived along with a dusting of snow. The sky was a steely gray and all of a sudden it felt like the dead of winter. Thanks to Jeff's dad we had a roaring fire with some lovely wood that he had brought us a week ago. Jac and Mia were wonderfully entertained by Aunt Daphne and Papa and Gee Gee. They played chase games and generally showed off for an hour or so. We had our traditional Christmas Eve fare for dinner, which are appetizers. I made meatballs and seared tuna and we had a veggie tray and a meat and cheese plate. Followed up by some Christmas cookies and chocolate, everyone was well fed.

Christmas morning - It took awhile to get the kids to bed, of course. I remember it being impossible to fall asleep on Christmas Eve as a kid. Amazingly enough, we all slept in on Christmas until 8:00 am, which is absolutely unheard of. It was lovely and eventually I had to whisper in Jac's ear, "do you think Santa came last night"? That roused him, he was going to go straight downstairs but I told him to wake up Mia.

The two of them carefully walked downstairs, unsure of themselves. They came into the "cars" room (we call our front living room the cars room) and saw all of the presents. They were a bit overwhelmed. They got over that pretty quickly and wanted to dig into gifts. We all got into it and it went pretty quickly. There wasn't a huge amount of coaxing in order to get them to open their presents. They got hung up on a couple that they wanted to check out, I believe Jeff had to read one of the new books to Mia before she would move on. All in all, it was a wonderful morning.

Jeff and I went to noon mass and it was wonderful. We were able to find a seat easily and the contemporary band made the music beautiful. The snow was falling pretty fast while we were out but not enough to accumulate. For Christmas dinner, we had ham and cheesecake for dessert our Carey family tradition.

All in all we had a fantastic time with our family and a wonderful Christmas. We are so blessed to be able to provide what we do for our family and it is overwhelming at times to realize that many are not this blessed.

Over the weekend we were able to spend a couple of days with Jeff's family also. We had some very interesting conversations that I will be thinking about for awhile. We exchanged gifts and ate well. Jac and Mia love playing with their cousins and try and keep up with all the older kids. I do hope that your Christmas was wonderful as well.

Update - We got our electric fence fixed yesterday for a very reasonable amount. Our collar works and I got a quick lesson on how to train for the fence. Jeff talked to the manager at the rescue group and he asked if we would be interested in taking Casey for the weekend, as her foster family is out of town for the weekend and she will be boarding at the rescue. We of course are very interested and so will probably have a furry guest for the weekend! She does have to go back to the rescue next week to finish her heartworm treatment and we will still need to have a home visit. But all in all things are falling into place very quickly. They would like to see Casey with us as she is a good fit for our family. I have a feeling that after the weekend we will all be madly in love with Casey.

Stress and Christmas

It's like Peanut Butter and Jelly or maybe more like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  I don't understand people who at least don't have a little bit of stress around the holidays, it's un-American.  I know for certain that come December 26th ish (maybe the 29th because this year we are doing a post Christmas gift exchange with Jeff's family), regardless, somewhere after Christmas in January perhaps I will sleep much better than I am sleeping right now.  I believe that even Santa, in all of his cookie eating and list checking is probably not getting to sleep immediately at night either thinking of all the things that must be done the next day. 

Last night I wrapped most, not all, of the presents.  I don't, obviously, wrap my own gifts that Jeff has bought for me.   But I wrap pretty much the rest of the gifts that are to be given by The Carey's.  I was so proud of myself for doing it early, not waiting until Christmas Eve.  I didn't want to wait this year, because I knew I would have other things to do on Christmas Eve.  The staging for the kids had to be done, the cameras charged, breakfast premade in the fridge ready to pop in the oven, Christmas lunch to at least have been prepped, Chrismas Eve Mass to be attended and obviously Christmas Eve festivities. 

There would be no wrapping on Christmas Eve. 

Jeff came into the room, probably to sneak a peak at his gifts, and said - "wow, you are wrapping on the 19th, not the 24th".  He said it with sarcasm and didn't look altogether too complimentary.  Well, my response was reserved, I could have said all manner of things that would have ended with "coal in your stocking!" but instead I said in a very mature tone, "I am trying to minimize my stress".  Which is exactly what I was trying to do!

This is the response I got.  "Stress?  Stress!   Why would Christmas make you stress?  It is my time to de-stress!"  

Well, the first thing I have to say to that is Bah Humbug.  I am trying to do less, shop less, worry less, clean less, cook less, eat less, everything less in order to make sure there is time to worship more, play more, sing more, love more - you get the drift.  But, I admit, there will still be a bit of stress.  I am not on a desert island with palm tress blowing in the wind and yes, my name is Dawn Carey - there will be stress.  Does this man not know me?  Have we not been married for almost 10 years?  So, instead of helping me wrap a few gifts, buy a few presents, plan a few meals, I get harangued for stressing out about what I still have to do in five days time.  Bah Humbug to that. 

I reminded him, my tone had changed a bit, that 90% of his and the rest of the houses Christmas was being accomplished by MOI!  I realize that he works and I do not.  And it has not been pleasant of late and that he really looks forward to taking to some time off and spending quality time with the family.  But still, if he has so much free time on his hands that he isn't even thinking about something to do with Christmas, do I have a list for you! 

Not for sympathy, more for evidence here is a bit of a list for next week.
First of all, we will have guests.  That means a toilet or two must be cleaned (or the whole house, however you want to look at it.)
Guests mean more food, even if it is hotdogs and chips (which it most assuredly will not) you still have to go shopping for said food.)
Christmas Eve, Christmas Breakfast and Christmas Dinner must all be planned  (they are all but planned, just finishing touchs and I need to think about the shopping and prepping).
Cookies, candy, desserts, etc must be baked and delivered to friends.
The rest of the packages must first be received from UPS (at least all are purcashed) and wrapped.
Christmas cards must be addressed (admittedly this could have been done a long time ago and is simple procrastination) and mailed.
Children must be entertained, fed, bathed, rested, clothed, wiped (both ends) and cuddled.
Children must be taught the real meaning of Christmas.
Christmas specials that only come on once a year, must be watched!
I absolutely have to get to the gym a couple of times otherwise this extra five pounds will consider taking up permanent residence.

I am not sure what your list looks like, but this is what I recommend.  First of all, ask your dear, dear spouse who seems to have been born with no stress in his DNA, if he could alleviate one or two of these items.  Second, look at this list sternly and decide what is not a priority and eliminate something if not two somethings.  Third, say a little prayer and have a drink of wine and maybe just maybe this lovely blessed Christmas will be a little less stressful and a lot more Christ like. 

Four Year Old Performance

Jac's class performed a Nativity musical (I was skeptical, I mean 20 four year olds acting out the nativity?, but they did a great job and it was age appropriate.) I had asked him about the play back at the beginning of December and he got very upset with me because it was supposed to be a surprise. So I had no idea what his part was until the day before and then he got loose lips and spilled the beans. Jac was the wiseman who brought gold, he was very excited about the whole thing. He knew everyone's role and he sang all of the songs. Very cute.

Preschool Performances

Here are some pics and a clip of Mia's Christmas party. Mia's class sang Christmas songs and were just all around entertaining. The big guy came to the party also. Jac was quickly on his lap and then Mia followed once big brother was safely snuggled up. They both looked suspicious though! The clips is short, only a minute or so.

The Meaning of Christmas

One of my goals this year has been to introduce some traditions that really help the kids understand the meaning of Christmas.  Not focus as much on the getting and more on the giving and helping aspects.  I have a ton of ideas and only so much time before the big day actually arrives. 

We have been reading a scripture from an Advent calendar each day, and Jac is always very excited to find out what is behind the little window.  We also have been lighting an Advent candle each Sunday.  Both of these are things that we can continue as the kids get older. 

I like the idea of a Jesse tree, a birthday party for Jesus, a good deed manger and many more.  What are some of the traditions that your family has for Christmas?

By the way, on a totally secular topic.  Our elf Paco is doing great, he has been flying back to the North Pole EVERY evening which is true testament to what a devoted Daddy Jac and Mia have.  (Someone has to remember, and I tell you, it isn't going to be Mommy unless I write a note!)  I have used Paco's name to strike fear into the heart of both my children on several occasions, a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.  Bedtime has been going smoother, "you need to go to sleep so that Paco can go ahead and go the North Pole", I guess my children are considerate enough that they don't want him flying about too late at night.  At least three meltdowns have been avoided because, "what will Paco have to report to Santa tonight"?

Oh That Elf

So I had heard of The Elf on the Shelf from some of my neighborhood friends with young children. They were pretty enamored with the little guy. I pretty much knew the gist of the story, you buy an elf he comes to scout out your children for Santa and in return you get some cute memories and maybe a tiny bit better behavior right before the holidays.  I really under estimated the power of the elf.

I had already decided to buy some other things for Christmas in the way of decorations and such so because I had heard of the elf later decided it just wasn't in the budget. I had planned to have some elves visit the house anyway, and did just that when I caught Jac and Mia being especially good one morning. (Check out the blog post that talks about their visit.)

However, my good friend in Dallas sent our family an elf as an early Christmas present. The package arrived at such a serendipitous time, that I instantly knew this elf was going to become part of the family. Jac was melting down, he has recently being going through a growth spurt and eating everything in sight. I had made some zucchini bread and allowed them both to have one piece at around 4:30pm but had said that was it before dinner. It is highly irritating for both Jeff and I when they don't eat anything for supper. So our normal cut off is 4pm but I made an exception on this day because the zucchini bread was chock full of healthy stuff. (I plan to write a post about this recipe because it was so yummy.) Jac started to throw a fit and I decided to go get the mail in order to give him some breathing room to hopefully cool down.  

I got the mail and noticed that we had a package at the side door. I grabbed the box and ran inside. The kiddos were instantly intrigued about the box. I said, let's open it carefully and see if there is a Christmas present in here. I saw that it was from Kerrie and assumed that it would be the first present we could put under the tree. The present was wrapped and it had a big note on the box that said "Open This Now". Hmmm, very interesting. I opened the card and it gave a bit more information saying that we needed to open the package now and that hopefully we would start a new Christmas tradition similar to the one her family had just started. (She seemed maybe a bit dismayed at her choice to start the tradition and maybe a bit concerned about our wanting this tradition also.) I wasn't positive but I was pretty sure the package contained an elf. So in we dug, as dinner was ready and we were just waiting for Daddy to get home I needed a serious distraction.

And distraction is just what I got. In the box was a lovely book about the elf and the elf himself of course. Before we got the elf out, I wanted to read the "instructions" so we sat down and read the book together. The book gave all of the details about the elf and exactly what his job entails. (Read more about him here.) The kids bought it immediately, it makes me a little frightened at exactly what they will believe!

When Jeff got home we sat down to name him, as the book instructed. While we were trying to figure out what his name was, Jeff touched him. You would have thought that he had picked up a bomb. The kids had allowed me touch him to get him out of the box and to put him on the mantle. But after that, the book said not to touch him or the magic might go away, so he was off limits. Mia actually left the room very angry with Daddy, I am sure that she thought the elf would no longer be able to fly to the North Pole that night. (Come to find out that the magic only starts after you name him so, no worries, Daddy will be getting more than coal in his stocking.) After much discussion between the three of us, Jac came up with Paco. We all voted and our elf is Paco the Mexican Elf, oh my.  
He did fly back to the North Pole that first night, and the second night, although I think that I need to put a note on my bathroom mirror to remind me to move him each night because Jeff actually remembered to move him at about 2am last night, thank goodness. It could have been a disaster if he had forgotten entirely. I think that is why Kerrie is a bit dismayed at her family's new tradition, because we can't forget about Paco. The devastation would be monstrous if they thought that he hadn't gone to talk to Santa one night.  Both Mia and Jac were ecstatic, and really I promise they were crazy with joy, when they realized that he had indeed gone to the North Pole, given his report and flown back to our house only to sit in a different spot and wait for them to find him.  Wow - if someone had dumped a truck load of puppies off at our house I am not sure we would have gotten a better response.  I already thanked my friend for the elf, but I want to thank her again for giving us so much joy and happiness with this crazy little elf.

It does creep me out a bit that Paco is moving around the house. The last two mornings I have wondered where I will find him, sort of like a stealthy pet that likes to hide (my roommate in college had an iguana that liked to hide in our closets on top of the hangars!). Regardless, Paco is here to stay, at least until Christmas comes. I will give you more updates as we get to know Paco better over the next few weeks.

Do you have The Elf on The Shelf? If you have Santa believers in the house, I highly recommend him.

Deck the Halls

Needless to say we all ate, drank and were merry over the Thanksgiving break. It is always wonderful to be with family and to have Jeff home for long weekends. We were able to see almost all of our immediate family over the break.

Then we came home and were immediately bombarded with Jac's requests to put up the "fall" decorations. By that he meant the Christmas decorations. Which is exactly what we did on Saturday and Sunday. Jac is a big helper and pretty relentless when it comes to decorating. He wants it all out and all out now. He made sure that every light was strung and every stocking hung. We are fully decorated and the house officially looks like Christmas. Now we just need the weather to cooperate - 70 and sunny doesn't feel like Christmas!

Did you get some decorating done this weekend?