Christmas Eve

Whenever I take these unscheduled breaks from blogging, I always miss it a lot. Last night, my brother (who is visiting for Christmas and our Dad's birthday, which is today) and my husband let me know that they missed my blogging too. Matty actually said something like, "Yeah, how am I supposed to know what the hell we're doing if you don't write about it every day." Which was flattering and inspiring and more than a little funny. So, this one's for you, baby.

To be clear, we're having the holidays. They are super fun this year. It's all going well.

The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were full of basketball practices and cookie baking and gift making and school Christmas parties, which this year brought up some fairly heavy and not entirely welcome questions of faith, the constitution, community norms, and public schools. But that is a story for another day.

It's been a number of years now that we've tried to make as many homemade gifts as possible, which adds quite a bit of chaos to an already full schedule. We started doing it to save money, of course, but it's really become a way for us to keep our loved ones close in our thoughts during the season, and to try to give things that mean something a little deeper than "I saw this at Target and thought you'd like it."

We get (and try to give) plenty of meaningful storebought gifts every year too. But gifts like this painting that the kids made for Matty tend to endure a bit longer in our hearts, you know?

These were the girl's idea for her cousins. They're based on a rather popular actual toy brand, which we used for inspiration, but were really very simple to make at home. We didn't get as many of them made as we would have liked, but she did make one for her brother, and we were able to give one to each of my sister's little ones. I really like the way these turned out, and might make more just because it's fun and it doesn't take all that long.

Usually on Christmas Eve, we're up until the wee hours frantically trying to finish up gifts and wrap everything and eat the Santa cookies and all that, but this year, we were pretty much all set by the time it hit. And this gave us time to start what I hope will be a new tradition with the kids. . .ice skating on the pond Christmas Eve morning. It was fun. There was some cutthroat hockey happening. The fresh air and sunshine and general good cheer was really the perfect way to prepare for getting dressed up all fancy for dinner at mom and dad's house.

Which we then did, and actually remembered to have someone take a family picture. Later, during the lessons and carols at church, they projected the pictures the Sunday school kids had drawn of the various parts of the Christmas story on the back wall of the sanctuary, and our kids were thrilled to see their drawings of Gabriel and Mary, Jesus in the manger, and the Magi as the corresponding verses were read.

After church, we drove through town looking at the luminarias and listening to solemn carols. The town was snow drifted and lovely, and the stars on the drive home were bright and stark. We read stories by the light of our own advent wreath, let the kids choose Santa's cookies, and could not have had fuller or happier hearts. Which was the perfect way to prepare for Christmas morning. Which is another story. For another post.