Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! This has been one of my favorite holiday experiences ever, and I really hope you can say the same thing! I'm not sure if it is because of our recent hospital experience, the scare of not being home for Christmas, or something completely different, but I have viewed Christmas through completely different eyes this year.

For starters, let me say that this was, by far, the most thrown together, do the mininum, last minute Christmas we have ever had! But, at the same time...I wouldn't change it for the world! I made everything as "normal" as possible for my family in the time I had avaialble...which wasn't much. It goes all the way back to a week ago when I left the hospital for a couple hours to decorate the tree with the kids. I didn't get all of the decorations out. In fact, all I got out was the tree, the stockings, and the mantle decorations. I didn't have a lot of time, so I just got out the smallest amount I could get out without interfering with our holiday traditions. But, it still looked beautiful (at least to me), and felt like Christmas.

As for presents, I only had 2 days to shop! That's not much. Now, even though I have done 100% of my shopping on Christmas Eve before, it felt much different this year. I guess that's maybe just because it wasn't by choice. I don't know. But, I did the best I could with the time I had. Now, this did mean I had to give a couple people IOU's and tell some that gifts would be late getting in the mail. But...inside my little house with my little family, I pretty much did what I needed to do. In fact, my kids were happier today when we were opening presents than they have ever seemed before!

Now Christmas dinner...yes, we still had it. I mean, we do every year, so we had to! It's a tradition, and I definitely did NOT want to break tradition this year!  But it was very minimal! (Especially since my oven is broken and I didn't get to get it fixed before today since we were in the hospital.) We had the basics...turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean caserole (Matt's favorite), and fruit salad. But, half of us were still in our jammies when we ate at 2:00 this afternoon! The formality of it went out the window so that Matt would still be comfortable, but the important part was that we still had our Christmas dinner!

But I have to say that our Christmas Eve traditions are the ones, out of everything we have done this weekend, that touched me the most and will stick with me forever. We ALWAYS get the kids in their PJ's, put out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer, read "Twas the Night Before Christmas," and tuck the kids in bed. This has been our ritual for years...since Ashley and Chelsea were tiny. Following our normal pattern, Lindsay and Blake changed, and chose cookies to put out for Santa. They didn't even care that the cookies they had to choose from were several store-bought packages that people brought me in the hospital and one set of homemade cookies my sister-in-law made and brought to us, but none that we made by us together like we usually do. They each chose a couple and got out some carrots and some milk. The book we usually read that belonged to my grandmother is in a box that didn't get pulled out in my mad dash to get the tree decorated, so I found an ebook I could pull up on the iPad. The kids didn't even care! So, we all got on the couch. Matt was sitting on my left, Lindsay on my right, and Blake on my lap. Blake had his head laying on my left shoulder, and Lindsay had her head laying on my right shoulder. I was holding the iPad, and Matt (as he does every year) was reading. As he was reading, all I could think was, "God, thank you so much for making this moment in time possible!" I was so overcome with emotion, I had tears rolling down my face the whole time Matt was reading. I mean, only 48 hours prior to that, we didn't even know if we were going to be home for Christmas. So, as I sat, holding my baby girl and baby boy, listening to the love of my life read the story I've listened to him read to our kids for 14 years, I was completely overcome. Usually, I mouth the words while he reads. I've heard the story so many times, I know it by heart. But, last night was different. All I could think about was how amazing it was that God had given me the amazing opportunity to sit on that couch, at that moment, with the man I love and two of our kids, making a memory that will stay with me until the day I die. After that, I very thankfully tucked them into bed, and then went to bed myself.

Today was pretty amazing, too! This morning, Lindsay and Blake tried to wake me up at the crack of dawn like they usually do; my mom came over, which was awesome since she actually lives only 20 minutes away from us now; and Chelsea came back from her dad's, which made my day perfect! We all opened gifts, and this evening my dad and my little brother came to stay a few days. I feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many people and so much love. Tonight was the first time I've seen my Daddy since Thanksgiving. I'm not gonna lie, when I hugged him...I lost it. I think when, as a woman, I am in a position that requires me to be the strong one for so long, it is refreshing to be able to lean on the strength of my dad! I am so glad he got to come donw!

All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas! And, I think the best part is that the heart and soul of this holiday is the birth of Jesus, who is the One who pulled me through the last 3 weeks in the first place. After all the help He gave me during all of our storms this month, it seems only fitting that we close the month by celebrating His birth. I mean, I can't even imagine the last month without His help! He is amazing!

Have you ever felt like your heart was so full of love and happiness it was going to explode?? Yeah...it's pretty great, isn't it???