I finally have enough time and energy to sit down and share how hectic, but wonderful our last week of Christmas celebrations was. I can't remember ever being this busy and tired. But, all the gifts are put away, the toy room is re-organized, groceries are bought for this week, laundry is in the machine, and a pot of broccoli cheddar soup is on the stove for dinner. We are finally on relaxation mode today.
Last week kicked off with our version of "Christmas Eve" on Sunday night. With Christmas Eve and Day being spent out of town with family, we moved Christmas Eve a night back so we could do our own thing at our house. I let Sean open one gift that had Christmas PJ's for him and Evan and The Polar Express on DVD. This is a tradition we want to start this year. Christmas jammies and either a Christmas book or movie that we'll watch together. He was so excited and he actually watched the entire movie!
We put the kids to bed, moved all the gifts upstairs, and enjoyed getting to play "Santa" as we nibbled on cookies and drank the milk Sean had left out.
And then "Christmas morning" came! We were able to sneak Sean around the other way to the kitchen for breakfast first since Evan would need to be fed. He must have forgotten that Santa visited. We ate a cheesy egg, bacon, and crescent roll wreath for breakfast and then let Sean wander into the living room where he went crazy with all the excitement of gifts!
I was surprised at how long it took to open all the gifts and how meticulous Sean was about getting every single piece of paper off of each gift before he even looked at what he got. He was most excited about his table we made him that he could play with his cars on and one of the games I made him with pictures of vehicles that he had to match up.
We let Sean play for a while with his new loot, got showered and ready to head across town for more festivities with Scott's family. We spent real Christmas Eve at his sister's house, his aunt's house, and finally his parent's house. It was like musical houses this year. While it was nice to visit all the houses, we were all caught off guard by the huge snowfall that was coming down. Needless to say it was a "white-knuckled" ride to his parent's house where we were for the rest of the evening.
Scott stuck around to play cards with his relatives and I took the boys across the main road to my parent's house where we spent the night. We're spoiled in that both of our parents live across one main road from each other! I was so excited because my brother and sister-in-law were in town from Portland and got to meet Evan for the first time and see Sean. They hadn't been back home in 2 years so it was like meeting Sean for the first time too!
After saying hello and playing for a bit, my parents helped me get the boys in bed at 11:00pm!! Latest they've both ever stayed up! The next morning we woke up and had a french toast casserole and egg bake for breakfast and then went to rip open more gifts. Poor Evan was running a fever and wasn't eating very much so we decided to take him to Urgent Care to see what was going on after gifts. The doctor suspected he had an ear infection and another upper respiratory infection so she gave him some more amoxicillin and we were on our way back home for Christmas dinner at my parent's house.
After we were stuffed again, we finally packed up all the goodies that Santa brought us and that our families gave us and drove the Ferstle sleigh back home. It took a while to get the boys to bed and unload the car, but man did it feel good to sleep in our own bed and lay down that night.
We definitely were very blessed this season as we were all spoiled rotten! Toys galore, a new external flash for me, a new storm door for our front door, an Ergo, Vera Bradley, a camera bag, etc. But, more importantly, it was so nice to see as much family as we saw in the those two days from both sides of the family. Not to mention we had a white Christmas!
A few days later and Evan is feeling better, my brother and sister-in-law went back to Portland, and life is slowing back down. With New Year's Eve tomorrow night, we have one more journey across town for a delicious dinner at my favorite restaurant, Mon Jin Lau, with my family and then a night out with the husband! As much as I'm looking forward to tomorrow night, I'm almost more excited for Wednesday when things go back to normal and we all take a deep breath. While this season is always magical, it's definitely exhausting. Happy Holidays!
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