December was a great month!
I had the majority of my Christmas shopping done before the month
started and I planned on doing service.
We had already did some shoebox gifts for kids in third world countries
and I had all the kids involved in putting those together so that was fun. And then the church came out with this
#lighttheworld initiative that had ideas for themes of service for every day of
the month. And we chose a family to do
the 12 days of Christmas for and I put a lot of time into that. I thought a lot about things I could do that
were not just spending money or donating things. I wanted to do thoughtful things to make
people feel good. At one point I had an
impression to write notes to some people letting them know that I SAW how great
they were. There are so many people in
my life who are just amazing. And I
decided to let a handful of them know a few things I saw when I looked at them,
or how they made me feel to be around them.
I tried not to overthink it because I would’ve talked myself out of
it. I thought, “this is weird, right? To
give notes to neighbors?” It was
Christmas season so handing a card to someone wasn’t too unexpected. I gave most of them out with my neighbor
gifts too. I didn’t think too much of
who to give them to, just whoever came to mind first. I thought maybe one of the people I wrote to
needed to hear what I said. The month
went on and we were busy of course. We
had Jeff and Brooke and their kids over for Christmas Eve dinner and exchanged
presents with their kids.
By the time things wound down and it was almost bedtime for
kids, I fell apart. I was so mentally
exhausted! The only thing I could think
of was that I had given A LOT of myself and it took a toll. (This is pretty personal, I wouldn’t be
writing it to social media in general. I
know my audience here is pretty small and this is just for my own
journal.) Ryan helped me get the
presents out and I finally made it to bed after putting together a few toys and
cleaning up some messes.
We had told the kids to stay in bed until 7. We set their expectations so they would know
we probably wouldn’t be opening presents before 9:00 church. So they needed to get enough sleep, they
could come up at 7 and look in their stockings, we would eat breakfast, and if
there was time we could open a couple presents.
I assumed they had come up and peeked at their gifts during
the night. But I still thought I could
get a video of them coming up the stairs and maybe acting surprised. So I woke up early to get showered and ready
so I could help the kids. Close to 7 I
got my phone and headed out there. And I
found the presents strewn all over the living room and a bunch of opened presents!!
I stood in shock trying to figure out what had
happened! Had Kaden somehow been let
loose? That was the only explanation but
that didn’t make any sense! Then Sadie
came out from the kitchen cruising on her new scooter, already dressed in her
church clothes and also wearing her new skirt and jewelry. Just as happy as could be. As you can imagine, I kind of freaked
out. How could she think that was
acceptable?? We have always been clear
about presents. Even on birthdays, we
wait to open presents until the whole family is around to watch. I yelled a little… I took her presents that
she opened and put them in a pile and told her she didn’t get to have
them. Then I sent her out of my site
before I said anything else I didn’t mean.
The girl is six years old. It’s
not like she doesn’t know better.
After a few deep breaths and the realization that Christmas
probably wasn’t completely ruined, I calmed down. When I asked her what she was thinking, she
didn’t really have an answer, but it was clear that she was surprised by how
upset I was. She did say, “I didn’t know”
assuming she meant ‘that I would get mad.’
I can only assume that in her little head, she had decided if she was
really fast, she could open presents before church. Oiy!
The kids were able to open a couple presents, and Sadie got
to sit and watch them because she had already opened like 10 presents! She had a few left that she opened after
church.
I didn’t get any pictures of the actual present-opening
because we got a lot of video. I did get
everyone to sit down for a minute before they changed out of their church
clothes, but I really only had a minute…
So this is the best we got! Oh
well.
I think the kids were pretty happy
with their presents and had a really fun day!
They were too busy to even do our Christmas puzzles with me. I guess maybe next year we will pull them out
earlier.
The day after Christmas, we went down to Logan to spend time
with my side of the family. We exchanged
presents with them and hung out in the morning.
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