A glimpse into what it is like during the most magical time of the year
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| photo cred: Jackie F |
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| 12 year difference |
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| 6:15am Christmas Eve Walmart run for stocking stuffers |
Intentional Outdoor Hours: 613+ hours (of 1000)
Reading A Thunderous Whisper by Christina Diaz Gonzalez
Listening to The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (thanks Shelly for the idea!)
Marco the Elf antics: holding the microphone, sitting in Santa's arms, with a birthday candle in a Debbie Cake Tree for baby Jesus on Christmas eve. We said goodbye to Marco before we went to bed on Christmas eve too since Santa was taking him back to the North Pole for another year. We will miss him - our sweet, cuddly elf.
Christmas movies watched: The Red One, Babes in Toyland (1986), Christmas with the Kranks, Edward Scissorhands
Christmas cookie baking: peppermint chocolate chip cookies (Reddy and Olive helped), sugar cookies with boiled icing (my grandma Helen's recipes for both) (Gemma helped), potato candy (instagram story updated!), pretzel/hershey kiss/m&m bites (Reddy and Loopy helped)
Traditions. I believe a lot in the importance of family traditions so I have always tried hard to maintain them and build them and make them feel special. Our kids care about our traditions too and talked about them a lot this year (or at least I noticed this year maybe because the stretch of ages of our kids feels so vast right now, it felt really important when our biggest kids were telling our littlest kids about our family traditions). Our Christmas traditions include: our elf Marco, St. Nicholas day with candy in their shoes (12/06), matching Christmas jammies, delivering cookies to our neighbors, sibling gift exchange, hanging up Christmas cards that we receive, our Christmas eve party, sitting on the steps on Christmas morning until the coffee is made and then each kid youngest to oldest gets to go down to the living room.
Early Sunday morning (6:30a) food shopping. I dragged myself out of bed, made coffee, and headed off before anyone else woke up with my grocery list in hand. It was snowing a little and despite being freezing cold and in no mood for shopping (I never am), I was glad to be on a mission for only food. On my list I Had food for the week (non-Christmas related), Christmas eve party food for our house, and post-Christmas food for hungry kids (but also knowing there would be leftovers). There was almost no one there so it was actually pretty easy and uneventful. I did run into one fellow momma (hi Mel!) in the check out line and we were both laughing at how ridiculous it is to be there that early but for real for real trying to pull off Christmas magic requires backflips sometimes.
St. David's Youth Christmas Pageant. Gemma helped as an usher, Violet did a reading, and both of them, Rusty, Reddy, and Olive all sang during the children's mass.
Sibling Gift Exchange! We all loaded up and headed to 5Below and each kid got another siblings' name and a $20 budget. The kids all did really well actually choosing for their person and not getting upset that they couldn't buy things for themselves. It stayed mostly a secret, but after some side conversations with each other, they figure it out pretty quick who has who. I love that they are all so proud and excited to buy things for whichever sibling they got. And I love seeing their ideas of each other in the gifts that they choose. We open sibling gift exchange gifts last on Christmas morning and they are all shouting thank you to each other and smiling about what they each picked.
Christmas at Abba & Chum's house. We spent Sunday evening at my parents' house to celebrate Christmas. We had yummy food, fun games (the cellophane and oven mitts game, arm wrestling, and lemon juice drinking!), and lots of laughter and memories. It was the first holiday celebration in their new house too which felt momentous - congrats to mom and dad after a year of total dedication to flipping the whole house from down to the studs, including an 8ft ditch to fix plumbing, and choosing all the fixtures and appliances, and countless trips to the storage unit, to drywalling and painting and cold winter days with no heat, and hot summer days with no air conditioning - you did it! You made it to Christmas at your new house. Proud of you both and thankful you might REST a little bit now (hahha, xoxxo!)
Rusty's oral surgery on Monday morning. B, Rusty, and I headed out at 5:30a towards Monroeville for his 7:15a appointment. Rust was a champ about it and said he just wanted to get it over with. We really did have an awesome doctor who was so kind and made Rusty feel at ease. I was able to be in the room until it was time to start and then anxiously waited in the waiting room with B. The entire surgery (removal of one baby tooth and the extra tooth) took only about 15 minutes and the doc said that Rusty did awesome. He was a little loopy from the laughing gas but seemed mostly tired more than anything. Just children's tylenol for the pain, no stitches, just rinse and brush so it can heal up! What a trooper right before Christmas - but he really did bounce back to the point of running and jumping later that evening and we had to convince him to take at least one day of rest?!
Preschool Christmas party for Reddy & Olive. The babies went to preschool (half day) on Monday to participate in their Christmas party. They had snacks and did their classmate gift exchange. They loved it! We gifted the teachers Lindor chocolates and tissue boxes and Clorox wipes (hah). God bless those preschool teachers - we are so thankful for you!
Early Christmas eve morning (6a) stocking shopping (!!!) We made it to Walmart by 6a and were on the hunt for the final little trinkets we needed for stockings for the kids: toothbrushes and their favorite candy, etc. There was next to no one else there (us and the employees it seemed- hah!) and we were able to get everything done in a little over an hour. Back before the kiddies even opened their eyes! I got everything wrapped that morning too and was able to make it back downstairs just as kids were asking for something to eat.
Breakfast brunch, cookies, cleaning, and craziness. Oh Christmas eve morning and afternoon is such a whirlwind. We made a huge breakfast and had Pappy over too - so everyone got plenty to eat. Then it was having each kid sit and roll out a portion of sugar cookie dough. Bless Gemma who helped me ice them all after each kid lost interest after about one. Grey pulled open the fridge door and all the pretzel/kiss/m&m bites fell to the floor! B got the ham prepped and in the crockpot and then he peeled an obscene amount of potatoes (I only used half of them and put the rest in the filled to the brim fridge). Grey chopped up the broccoli and cucumbers for the veggie platter. Then it was getting everyone dressed up for mass at 4:30p: hair to braid, shirts to iron, shoes to find. We made it though with only a few moments of panic mixed in there.
Christmas eve mass at St. David's and we got to sing and share pews with Pappy, Mimi, Abba, Chum, Kitty, Bryan, and the kids' honorary grandma Shelly. It was beautiful and all of our favorite moment is holding candles with all the lights off as we sing Silent Night. Red and Olive were so excited to participate this year and I only needed to remind Olive once to not hairflip near the open flame!
Christmas eve at our house and thankful that everyone just goes with the flow and spends the evening chatting and snacking and chilling while the kids run amok around the house tracking Santa on every tv in the jammies. We make sure to get one nice family picture in our Christmas eve mass clothes - but the kids are always anxious to open on Christmas jammies. We got reindeer onesies this year (LOL) and the kids put them on right away (I did too because they are for real comfy). Kitty played UNO with the kids and Abba did her annual tradition of reading The Night Before Christmas (but specific to our family so all the grandkids names are in it!) Everyone brings something to share (thank you!) and the hours of kid excitement are manageable and pass easily. Our house is full and bright and warm and loud. it is perfect. As Santa makes his way up South America (thank you Norad tracker on Youtube), the little believers start encouraging guests to leave (LOL) and the kids pick out their cookies and dump the reindeer dust in the yard as they throw carrots all around too.
Christmas morning! please Tabitha, don't ever forget what it is like to sit in the living room on Christmas morning with all six kids ripping and gasping and laughing and shouting 'thank you!' and 'it's just what I wanted!' with the Christmas music playing and the tree glowing and you make eye contact with B over tops of blonde heads with wrapping paper strewn everywhere and a warm cup of coffee in your hand. When they say the good 'ole days - they mean this exact moment. please hold on to it in the deepest part of your memory.
Christmas day at Pappy's house. We spent the rest of the day at Pappy's house in our reindeer jammies with Mimi who came down to celebrate with us! Pap made his famous and delicious meatloaf with potatoes and carrots. He had a cake to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus (one of Gigi's favorite traditions), and gifts wrapped for all the kids and me and B. We watched the Steelers v Chiefs game and I got in a 2+hr nap (!! my favorite tradition and best gift every year at Pappy & Gigi's house on Christmas day). We missed you Gigi, but knew you were there with us. love you. xxo. (sending hugs to anyone who was carrying a broken heart with them this Christmas).
Home on Christmas night and not a care in the world about the mess and the clutter and the leftovers and the laundry baskets. I made it. I made it through the holiday season and all the magic. I made it through fall sports and back to school. It was time for rest; the weary world rejoices.
Sporting because why not (hah): Violet had a double header basketball day (semifinal and championship game) and her team came in 2nd place! Gemma had one basketball practice and Grey had a shoot around, the consolation game for the Central Cambria tournament, and a Christmas Eve basketball practice.
Making baked ravioli for Monday night. Christmas eve breakfast was a big one to try to hold us over until the evening: we had pancakes, eggs, cinnamon rolls, bacon, and sausage. For our Christmas eve party we made a Tavern ham in the crockpot, potato soup, maple and bacon brussels sprouts, cheesy garlic pull-apart bread, and a veggie platter. We also ate A LOT of cookies.
