Even when I was a little girl, I was filled with both dread and excitement on Christmas Eve.  Of course, I was excited for Santa to come and for all the joy of the day.  But, I also didn’t want it all to end…the beauty of the season, the magic of the day, the excitement of looking forward to something.  This feeling has lessened some over the years – I have so much to look forward to in January now – namely, Gracie’s birthday.  As an adult I try to find the excitement and beauty in, if not every day, at least every season. Still, December 26th is generally not my favorite day of the year!

This year, I am truly enjoying the morning after.  I have the day off from work (like really off – the office is closed, the bank is closed, everything is closed), my sister and her family are arriving this evening, and the girls and I just hanging out, watching TV and playing with the mountain of toys they received yesterday from Santa.  I can’t remember the last time we felt this unencumbered and I must say, I’m loving it.  We could certainly use more days like this!

Overall, our Christmas season was wonderful.  There were some hiccups along the way, but they were small.  I didn’t get to do as many things as I wanted – we still have boatloads of cookie-making supplies and boxes full of things to use to make Christmas crafts.  We’ll get to what we get to and the craft supplies will certainly keep.  We were able to spend the Christmas season together and isn’t that what really matters?  We did manage to have a fantastic time with our Elf on the Shelf, Angelina Selena.  We had such a good time with her that Gracie even cried when she had to go back to the North Pole on Christmas Eve.  I’ll have to share some pictures of her antics with you soon – she brought many smiles to all of us this year.

I enjoyed spending a quiet Christmas Day with Steve and the girls.  It wasn’t until about 11:00 a.m. that I realized that the girls didn’t get a single electronic toy. So, the day was spent with a lot of imaginative play.  Gracie said her favorite gift was a wooden bluebird that Santa carved just for her (yes, that’s a blog post in itself).  Abigail spent most of the day playing with the horse Santa brought for her doll.  Gracie had a dice Skip-Bo game in her stocking; I can’t tell you how much fun we all had playing that. 

My family came over for dinner – it was a good combination of old favorites and new treats.  All in all, it was a great day.

I hope you all had a wonderful, wonderful Christmas full of blessings, smiles, and lots of hugs!