I stressed sufficiently but eventually was distracted by something else. Like in the moment needs of caring for a family.
Today is Christmas Eve and what our tradition could be, should be, will be dawned on me. Since Ross is off for 48 hours, whenever it happens, our Christmas tradition is going to be just that. 48 hours of Christmas awesomeness.
It "came to me" because really, that's what we're trying to do this year. Ross is off Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (jackpot!) and I really wanted to make the most of it. So we're spreading the fun out over both days. And while it is really awesome to have Christmas Eve and Day this year, I realized we can always celebrate for two full days. Every year. So that is what we'll be doing.
This year that meant Christmas music and stockings this morning. Stockings, for us we've decided, are from family. No Santa involved and they are done just the four (Mom, Dad, Cade & Lexi) of us. That's our own little private slice of holiday time. So at 8 a.m. today we busted into our stockings.
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| Aquarium trains for his train set, complete with water and toy fish and they light up! |
Now we're laying low. Everyone is in pajamas; Cade is watching a Thomas Christmas movie, Ross is napping and I am drinking really delicious special Christmas wine. When Cade's movie is over, he and I will decorate gingerbread-man cookies for Santa and early this evening, we'll go to church with Nana and Grandpa Jack.
Tomorrow my parents will arrive, and after naptime, we'll have the big family Christmas party with tree presents and dinner.
It's all the normal things of Christmas, but I'm really enjoying stretching them out across two days instead of cramming everything into one. It also means we can do EVERYTHING: movies, stockings, tree presents, big dinner, and church. Literally all of the Christmas things.
In 20 years, when Cade is in college and everyone is talking about their Christmas traditions, I hope he'll say "we had Christmas weekend. It always lasted two days." Maybe he'll say "we did stockings just us" or "we had surf-n-turf for dinner," some of the little more traditional traditions we're slowly establishing. But if his story is we celebrated and had the best time ever for two days, I'll feel like I've done my mommy job on the Christmas front.
