traditions

Now that the celebration of our Savior’s birth has passed, along with buying and wrapping of too many gifts to count, we are actually enjoying each other. I wish I could wear the “success” hat and say we have mastered perfectly savoring and appreciating Christmas time, but I will keep it real. I failed. I yelled and wrestled with my kids each night to sit still while I read the Jesse Tree, one of our new Christmas traditions. My dear friend made us ALL the ornaments to match and wrapped them. She is amazing. They learned to sit without squirming by December 23rd.

My new wrapping tradition is sticky bows. HELLO!? McFLY!!! (I am stupid stubborn and like to curl ribbon, what can I say?) 32 years old and finally gave into to sticky bows and closed a chapter of the pretty wrapping season of my life.

I am brilliant and decided THIS was the year I am going to teach my children the joy of giving. Thank you dollar tree for existing. Everyone got everyone gifts and that accounted for at least 50 presents. I had to remind myself wrapping pencils and recalled toys from China is F.U.N. And then Christmas came, and no one cared.

me: “Don’t you want to see {insert child’s name here} open the gift you so thoughtfully gave them?”

Them: “No, I already know what they have.” or “Look at what I have!” Or “huh? -no”. December 26th, $49 worth of junk met their fate in the big black stank tank.

We missed our Christian. He would have been one and a half. We filled his stocking for the 2nd year with hand written letters. Halle scribbled in red. To say it is ok, and we are moving on just fine would be a lie. We miss him terribly. This season was hard, and quite honestly I found myself relying solely on God’s grace to help me escape those moments I knew were coming, or strengthen me for the moments I had to feel and cry my way through. I was given the chance to see God at work in me by submitting to the sadness and looking up to Him again and again. And then again.

All in all, I still feel like we won. It was a beautiful Christmas! We realized how blessed we are to have been given so many gifts: our families, friends, church, home…to be able to have the opportunity to participate in the whole giving and receiving of gifts this season. I was able to reflect back on this year and see the only reason I could wrap gifts and celebrate is because of an incredibly loving God, who gave us himself in the human Christ so we have an eternity of Him to enjoy. We serve an incredible God.

As you can tell by the lapse in postings, I am failing to rejoin reality, generally speaking. Returning texts, remembering why my kids are getting a time out, speaking an interpretable language…you get the point. Aside from a few days in the last few weeks, I am a brand of tired I never knew existed. I am not sure if it’s mental or physical or depression…anyway, it’s a roadblock. It has gotten better. I don’t feel like I need to call a cab on the way back of our 10 minute hike to school, or when we hit up the mall. There were a good three weeks of headaches which were admittedly scared me. Aaaaand basically they equaled more excuses. I don’t believe it is in our nature to be lazy in the mom department. A) we love our babies B) we can see the fruit of that luxury painfully quick. Yet, resting, I feel as a mom, is a big red flashing sign of lazy. And I hate that. There are times we need to rest and not be thrown the guilt blanket. Amen? Amen.

I am looking forward, VERY MUCH to 2015, setting all kinds of fancy goals like reading things, growing in Christ, reclaiming  my brain and body back and building some stamina. One 3 lb weight at a time baby. 😉

Happy 2015 to you!