Family Christmas

We had a wonderful, but very busy Christmas this year. We are blessed enough to live close to all of our family....all three sets of grandparents and one set of great-grandparents. This makes for a lot of house hopping and gift giving. Every year I say I'm not going to do it anymore, I turn into the Grinch and say we aren't driving around all Christmas and that everyone can just come to our house. But somehow we end up driving around to everyone and spending most of our Christmas in the car. 

The girls had a blast and love driving around to see everyone. It was exhausting for me, especially since I'm anti-social and a hermit, AND I do all the majority of the work as far as packing/unpacking and preparing for all of our short term trips.

We spent Christmas Eve with Mark's family. The big hit at their house was princess dresses for the girls.

Two years ago, when Annie was a baby, we decided to start spending Christmas morning at our own house, and opening gifts from just us. I'm so glad we started this tradition then, because as the girls get older, I want them to remember Christmas morning waking up in their own beds and running down the stairs in our house and spending the morning just the five of us. I always make a big breakfast and we just love spending time together in our pjs on Christmas morning.

 Stella had matching pjs too but of course she peed all the way through them. I seriously contemplated leaving her in pee pjs for christmas morning pictures and then realized that would be stupid and only for appearance and not for her comfort. So unmatching pjs it is.

We usually set out one big gift for the girls....something they can all share and enjoy. One year it was a wagon, one year it was doll accessories, this year we bought them an art easel. Stella won't be able to use it for a few years (other than chewing on chalk and art supplies) but the older girls loved it.

We keep things fairly simple as far as gift giving goes. Everyone gets three gifts, Something you Want, Something you Need, and Something to Read. My friend Claire mentioned they do the same thing. Usually for the girls, this translates into a toy, an outfit or a pair of shoes, and of course a book. We also do little stocking stuffers.

Annie asked for a baby doll this year. Although we have collected quite a few over the years she doesn't have one that is just hers, so she got what she wanted.

Next year I'm hoping to hang around our house for longer on Christmas day. As soon as we finished breakfast we hit the ground running and went to my dad's, back home for quick naps, back to my dad's for a big family late lunch, then to my mom's for Christmas evening. Not really sure how any of this can be changed....of course we want to see everyone on Christmas but it's getting harder and harder to drag three little ones around and make sure everyone gets equal time. I try to make everyone happy and usually I end up making myself miserable.

Ahh the Holidays.

We are very blessed. I know many people who don't have any family to go see on Christmas. We are so fortunate to have so many wonderful people in our lives who want to see us and shower us with gifts on Christmas. I get whiny about it but really it's such a good problem to have.....to have too many places to go on Christmas. We are so loved.