Our Christmas Overview | 2022 Edition

Why must Christmas fly by so fast?

I feel like – there is so much anticipation and excitement and joy in the counting down to this ONE big day (and we even spread it out over several big days) – and yet still, it is all gone in the blink of an eye.

I know it goes fast (and seemingly faster every year), so I really truly do my best to mentally prepare for it, and yet I always seem to find myself in this first week of January – with a slight-case of the post-Christmas-blues.

Don’t get we wrong: we had the most splendid, amazing, magical Christmas. We really truly did. (Minus the minor anxiety attack I had on Christmas morning when I realized that the kids were opening presents at an alarmingly fast rate and this would be the only Christmas that they are 7 and 4 years old and I just really wanted everything to stop so I could soak it in – oops. Next Christmas Mama is implementing the “one-at-a-time” rule so Christmas morning is a little less break-neck-pace!)

I have lots of memories and thoughts and photos to share, so if you’d like to take a stroll through what our holidays looked like – here we go!

CHRISTMAS EVE

Christmas Eve morning is traditionally spent at Meme and Grandpa’s house.
Breakfast and gifts on Christmas Eve morning with Meme and Grandpa is my family’s longest standing tradition – they’ve been doing that since I was a baby, so I literally know no other way to celebrate Christmas Eve. It’s always an amazing, wonderful time of packing Meme and Grandpa’s house full to overflowing, eating delicious food, and opening gifts (complete with some wrapping paper balls being thrown around at the end).

Meme and Grandpa have had some health issues over the last few years – so it makes these annual Christmas Eve breakfasts more and more special and meaningful. Again I found myself wishing I could freeze (or at least slow-down) time to truly soak it all in.

Our church had a late afternoon Christmas Eve service this year, so after coming home from Meme and Grandpa’s, we all changed into our Christmas outfits and off we went to church.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that it was absolutely frigid this year for Christmas! Temps on Christmas Eve hit a lovely 2º (with the “real feel” nestled down in the -20’s). It was mind-boggling how cold it was!

After church, we came home to eat dinner as a family and enjoy the last few hours before Christmas Day!

I take photos of the kids in their Christmas pajamas every year in front of the Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve. They’re typically BURSTING at the seams and my goal is to simply capture their excitement! In my head, the only photos I “need” are a nice photo of Braelynn and Leander together in front of the tree, plus a photo of them looking up at the tree. Otherwise, I just let them show off their happiness and capture it – motion and all!

This was the first year that both Braelynn and Leander got gifts for each other. Braelynn has bought gifts for her brother since he was born, but up until now, Leander has been too young to understand how to get her a gift too.

Knowing that the next morning would be absolutely bonkers and wanting to make the “sibling gift exchange” more special, we suggested they give each other their gifts on Christmas Eve.
I’d say it was a HUGE hit and I plan to make this a new tradition for them!

Braelynn and Leander know that Santa Claus isn’t real (we actually did quite a bit of reading this year about the real Saint Nicholas), but they still wanted to put out cookies and carrots “for Santa and his reindeer”.

After they brought their tray out, Braelynn added a tiny note on the side and I think it was my favorite tiny memory of the entire holiday.

CHRISTMAS DAY

After the kids went to bed, Derrick and I watched a movie and then put out the gifts.
And then, as some whipped cream and a cherry on top, Derrick made our living room extra magical by adding a sea of Christmas lights around on the floor for the kids to wake up to.

They were up BRIGHT AND EARLY – Braelynn was up at 5:04am (yikes) and Leander was up around 5:45am. We kept them upstairs until around 6am, and then there was no holding back the tide any longer. (I guess when you have traditionally early risers, there is no avoiding the insanely early morning on Christmas!)

No Christmas morning will ever live up to the magic of last year (although, Derrick really did try with my Mickey Mouse waffle iron). I mean, how could he ever “level-up” from giving me the vacation of my dreams? (In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, last Christmas Derrick surprised me with a Walt Disney World vacation – he had already purchased our tickets, booked our AirBnB, and taken the time off work – I still cry whenever I think about it!)

My Mickey Mouse waffle maker is pretty darn fantastic though and we’ve been thoroughly enjoying it ever since Christmas morning!

My Mom requested that we do a “progressive dinner” on Christmas Day.
We started out by going to Ellen and Jonathan’s house for appetizers..

And then everyone came to our house for salad..

Then we all moved on to Mom and Dad’s house for the main course..

And lastly, we all went over to my Grandma’s house for dessert!

It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun!

There were definitely elements of the day that I loved, and things I wish we could have tweaked to be a bit different (for example: I loved that we each gave out our gifts to everyone at our houses – this cut down on the chaos of gifts at Mom and Dad’s and made the gifting process more personal. I also LOVED that we all went to Grandma’s for dessert! Going to Grandma’s for Christmas dinner was what we always did when I was growing up, but it’s just become too much for her to handle over the last few years. So, going to her house for dessert felt so normal and like Christmas. The cons of the dinner mostly revolved around going from house-to-house: we were on a “tight” schedule, so we only had about an hour at each house. It simply felt like I never got a chance to sit down and actually talk to anyone or enjoy the fact that it was Christmas Day. We were constantly moving – coming in, eating, opening gifts, or going out.)

CHRISTMAS WEEK

Christmas week was spent relaxing and enjoying all of the gifts the kids got! They received so many craft kits and interactive toys – and they dove right into them!

We even snuck in one last afternoon visit to Kennywood!

And look who joined us! My Mom, Ruby, Alethea, and Layla!

NEW YEAR’S WEEKEND

On Friday morning, we packed up bright and early and head up to Derrick’s parent’s house!
Sadly, our time there got cut a bit short when Braelynn got sick on Sunday morning (we were planning to stay until Monday), but we still had an amazing few days before we had to leave!

When we came home (and Braelynn was feeling better) we took our yearly “end of the year” living room photo! Every year I set up my little phone tripod and we take a handful of family photos all snuggled up together in our living room – these photos not only act as a bookmark at the end of the year – but they take up the last pages of our family yearbook for the year (which I’ll be starting to work on soon!)

We hope your holidays were magical and wonderful and send you best wishes for a happy and healthy 2023!