On having a Merry Christmas

1) Have a baby around for Christmas
It makes everything more fun.

2) Celebrate with family

Make sure adoring Grandmothers are around, if possible. And lots of cousins for kids to play with...
And for aunts to play with too...
3) Give up on getting a perfect picture of your kids in front of the tree. Just take what you can get and stop driving everyone crazy with your obsessing...
4) To ensure that there is no mistaking you for "the perfect family" do something dumb to liven things up a bit
This is what I did:
(SANTA SPOILER ALERT)
We've never been huge into Santa. We are not opposed to him, but we just don't talk about him much. In fact, at first Tate learned what he knew about Santa "on the street". He kept referring to him as The Santa Claw. It sounds like a Christmas horror movie to me. But I think Santa is a fun Christmas tradition. Anyway, the two older kids don't believe in him. Jack does. Or should I say, Jack did. Until I exclaimed to him on Christmas night, "Oh Jack! I forgot to put something in your..." Long pause. I hoped that maybe he had missed it. But he got a huge smile on his face and yelled, "Were you just going to say you forgot to put something in my STOCKING???!!!". He knew he had caught me. But i don't think he was even thinking about the secret of Santa. He just wanted the missing present.

5) Have a white Christmas

(Confession time...on that last picture I "airbrushed" my wrinkly lips with the touch up feature. I highly recommend it. I'm way too scared of plastic surgery, but cyber-surgery is a-ok with me!)

6) Have a family church service

Due to the aforementioned snowstorm, our Christmas Eve service was canceled. This turned out to be a special part of our Christmas as we sang and shared together all as a group. Here is my brother-in-law"Pastor Alvin" greeting his congregation...
That night we shared some of our favorite Christmas memories. Jack shared his favorite memory was the service we were having right then. He may have changed his tune as the service went on a little longer than he anticipated. But it will always be one of my favorites.

7) Keep your treasured family traditions

Like opening their presents of jammies on Christmas Eve. I wasn't thinking and waited to have the kids open their jammies until Lulu had fallen asleep...
I'm still adjusting to having a fourth child, I guess. Jack, was so excited about his jammies he decided to change right in the middle of the living room with 20 people around...
Another tradition is all the cousins gathered upstairs on Christmas morning waiting until everyone is ready for them to come down...
They play games to keep busy...
This is how Jack felt about it...
Being stuck upstairs waiting for two hours is not exactly a treasured tradition to my kids.

But they do love the tradition of the kids running down in ascending order of age to find their stockings overflowing...
Lulu was a bit overwhelmed by it all...

Another tradition is Jesus' birthday cake. Is it just me or does it look like someone took a bite out of His cake on the upper right edge?
Was Jack the first one you suspected? Poor guy. But if the shoe fits!

I missed out on our family tradition of singing the prayer before dinner that my family grew up singing. I was feeling sick to my stomach and lying upstairs in bed. From there I could hear them singing...

Thank you God for happy hearts
For rain and sunny weather
Thank you God for this our food
And that we are together.
Amen.

I sighed as I listened (and prayed along) thinking how much I love this family and wanted to be with them. I was sad, but my heart was so full. Then at the end I heard Gunga yell "WE MISS YOU MISSY!" This is not a perfect family by any stretch. But this is a loving family. And I'm so glad to be part of it.

It was a very Merry Christmas for us. And I hope it was for you too!