Our Christmas Overview | 2024 Edition

Ahhhh Christmas.
We count down the days and anxiously lament how long it’s taking to get here – and then in the blink of an eye, it’s over.
I can’t believe it’s over already.

Christmas this year was both wonderful and challenging (but heavier on the “wonderful” side of the scale).
In fact, I’ve described our Christmas to most everyone I’ve talked to over the last few days as “miraculous”.

See, I’m the oldest kid in a large family. There are a lot of us and whenever we all gather together, at least one person is bound to have a minor sickness of some kind. After all: kids just have runny noses all winter long – that’s how kids are. Normally, we don’t let minor colds impede on our “big” celebrations, but this year, even one little sniffle would have ruined everything.

My youngest sister, Ruby, is going through chemo treatments and her one wish was for everyone to be together for Christmas. We ALL haven’t been “all together” in months (see above where someone is always sick) and so, the likelihood of this wish coming true was pretty slim. But, we all prayed and did our due-diligence to keep healthy and MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, the week of Christmas broke without a single sniffle to be seen.

But I’m getting ahead of myself..

CHRISTMAS EVE EVE

On Christmas Eve Eve – my sister Amy put together this SECRET “flash mob” style Christmas caroling “extravaganza” as a surprise for my sister Ruby and my parents. Normally, we have a bunch of Christmas “traditions” we do in December (as a big extended family) and since all of those things were off the table (in an effort to keep Ruby healthy and keep her recovery rolling as smooth as possible), my sister Amy came up with the idea to do something fun and different and secret to remind Ruby that we all love her so much.

This was probably my favorite Christmas memory of the entire week.
We all sneakily gathered together, got in our places, invited Ruby and my parents to come outside, and surprised their socks off with a whole Christmas caroling program.
We all cried – it was such a huge blessing and all the credit goes to my sister Amy and her husband Nathan for pulling it all off!

CHRISTMAS EVE

Christmas Eve is traditionally spent at Meme and Grandpa’s house for breakfast with the extended family.
A few tears were shed all around as we all arrived and hugged Meme – missing Grandpa more than ever. Seeing his house bursting with his favorite people was always his favorite thing and he would have LOVED to see us all gathered together.

We ate delicious food, exchanged gifts, and ended our morning with our “traditional” (epic) wrapping paper snowball fight.

Without my usual Abby’s Saturday photos to take, Christmas Eve arrived and I realized that I hadn’t taken our annual “dressed up in our Christmas-best in front of the tree” photos yet! YIKES. So, we got ready for Christmas Eve service at church a little bit early and the kids were gracious enough to be good sports for me to take their photos.

After church we came home to dinner in the crockpot (eaten by candlelight), unwrapping our last Christmas book of the season (‘Twas The Night Before Christmas), the kids exchanging their gifts to each other, and our annual Christmas pajamas under the Christmas Tree photos!

CHRISTMAS DAY

Our Christmas morning was EARLIER THAN EVER.
Braelynn and Leander were absolutely BURSTING with excitement and we just couldn’t keep them in bed and upstairs any longer than we did.

As excited as they were, we had a really wonderful time of relaxing together and exchanging gifts!
Last year, we moved a couch into the dining room to make things more cozy – and we did it again this year.
Last year, we implemented a “slower” approach to opening gifts – and we did it again this year.
All together, it was such a fabulous, fun morning!

Remember that miracle I was talking about?
I honestly held my breath all the way up until the moment we arrived at my parent’s house – was it possible for us all to gather together for Christmas without any sickness?!
What an incredible gift the Lord gave Ruby that day.

CHRISTMAS WEEK

Of course, no string of “health” could last forever.
Our prayer was that we would all be healthy “for Christmas” and that prayer was answered.
By the weekend after Christmas – almost everyone was sick. But that’s okay.
Leander came down with a cold first, and then one by one, we’ve all fallen prey to his germs.

That simply means: we spent the week between Christmas and New Years at a slower pace than we were expecting. We laid around, ate tons of leftovers, watched lots of movies, did a ton of art projects, played games, and the kids built Legos until their fingers fell off (not really, but they did build a lot of Legos!)

NEW YEARS

Sickness kept us home on New Years Eve (and sent us all to bed early – I think it’s the first time in my entire life that I’ve gone to bed before midnight on New Years Eve!) and sickness kept us home on New Years Day as well. We were supposed to go celebrate the New Year at my sister Ellen’s house, but we elected to keep our germs to ourselves and we stayed home.

The next day, we hosted Derrick’s brother and his family for some Abbey Christmas! We were all still on the mend-health-wise, but it was wonderful to see them and celebrate with them!

And now, we’re just trying to get back to our regularly scheduled programming! With Christmas and New Years falling directly in the middle of each week, our time “off” has been a little wonky. But that’s okay, it was wonderful (sickness and all).
Happy New Year!