Christmas family fun

We have been having such a wonderful Christmas! First off, it's absolutely amazing to me that we made it through all of the festivities without any of the six of us puking! With the stomach flu running as rampant as it is, and with our family's horrible record of getting sick right at Christmas, this fact is staggering to me! :-)

In our family, Christmas is a month-long affair. I'm not exaggerating. The day after Thanksgiving, we head to the Holidazzle parade with our parents, and that marks the beginning of the party! From then through New Year's Day, we participate in 6 (at last count) family Christmas celebrations. That doesn't include Christmas Day, which we choose to spend at home alone, just the six of us. People generally think I'm crazy when I tell them that I have the majority of my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving, but if it's not done by then...it's just not happenin'! Generally speaking, I really enjoy all the celebrating. I absolutely love being together with the people I love the most, and some of them I don't get to see very often, which only makes our Christmas time together that much more special.

All of the activity in the month of December, however, does cause us to kind of collectively exhale on Christmas Day when we stay in our pajamas all day long and do...pretty much nothing! :-) I'm not sure I fully understand it, but for some reason, getting to stay in their pajamas all day long is the height of privilege for my kids. Every time something special rolls around, the first thing they ask me is, "Can today be a pajama-day?!" They think it's especially cool when we pile into the car every year on Christmas night (still in our pajamas and slippers) and drive around to look at Christmas lights. It's how we end our wonderful day each Christmas.

This year, Daddy did a little bit of research and found that there was a really cool drive-through light display in a small town about a 1/2 hour from our home. Perfect! Since no one was going to be leaving the car, we just piled in as we were -- PJs, slippers, blankies in hand, and no coats or other winter gear of any kind. It was sleeting a little bit as we pulled out of the driveway, but it didn't seem like a big deal in town here, and our Suburban can drive in pretty much anything, so we didn't really worry about it. (I would, however, like to have it on record that I did briefly ask my husband at that point, "Do you think it's smart to go out in this weather without at least grabbing coats for the kids...just in case?" For which I received a quick brush-off accompanied by a reminder of our trusty Suburban's many glowing qualities and its virtual "un-stoppability" in bad weather of any kind.)

And so, we were off to see the lights! It's funny, what seems like no big deal in the city turns into a whole different ball-game out in a rural community. We got about halfway to our destination and the wind became relentless. I don't think it was even really snowing that much, but with no buildings or trees to break it, the wind was picking the snow up off the ground and creating almost white-out conditions! My perseverent husband pressed on. The first snag came shortly thereafter. We've been parents for 8+ years now -- I don't know where our brains are sometimes. We forgot to make our 3 year old go to the bathroom before we left the house (duh!) There were no bathrooms for MILES, so we eventually had to pull over behind a small building of some sort, pull down her pajama bottoms and hang her sweet little tushy out my door in blustering winds to get the job done. Oy! Problem solved though -- she did it like a trooper and we were back on the road (I think...we really couldn't see where the road was exactly with all the drifting snow.)

To condense the story, the blowing and drifting snow got so bad, that I began to doubt our ability to safely get the children home again! I am not prone to panic, but the wind made it so that we couldn't see the road AT ALL, and the gusts of wind completely wiped out any forward visibility that we had. It would have been SO easy to drive right into a snowbank, thinking we were still on the road. The only thought that kept running through my head was, "We are SO unprepared for this! How long would our kids last in PJs and no shoes?!" I was wearing slippers with no socks on too. We were really out in the boondocks, so there were miles between houses/farms (ie - no help available in case of emergency!) I literally had to close my eyes while my husband drove because I couldn't take it. He eventually turned around -- a combination of finally coming to grips with the danger, and our son's tearful pleas of "Daddy I just want to go home" from the backseat. YIKES! The next day my oldest child said, "Mommy, I was praying the whole time that we would make it home OK." (Me too!!)

We made it home no worse for the wear, and the good news is that we went back out last night and actually made it to the place -- it was really neat! So, we got to see our lights after all.

This time with the kids off from school has been so nice. Everything has slowed down. We're not accomplishing much of anything...just hanging out together. It always surprises me, for some reason, how much our kids enjoy each other's company. I expected more scrapping over the break, but they've really been just laughing and playing and getting a kick out of one another.

This year we have the added fun of having my husband's cousin and her family visiting from another state. They'll be staying with us Monday through Wednesday, and I know we'll have tons of fun with them. I think we'll hit the rink for some ice skating while they're here.

We hope that you have had as blessed a Christmas as we have this year, and are taking time to enjoy all the special moments together!