A Quiet Christmas Season

Every year we talk about toning down Christmas.  The rush of the season always seems to get away from us, and we rush around like crazy people, getting gifts, wrapping presents, going to parties, celebrating just about everything about Christmas including the birth of Jesus at different Church programs, musicals, cooking baking, jumping from different family members homes all the haste of celebrating the season.  The things we do aren't bad, and while they are very fun individually, as a whole, they leave us feeling exhausted and frazzled.

Maybe it was the transition of moving and being in a new place this Christmas. Maybe it was beginning the season with the threat of a tummy bug looming all over town.  Maybe it was the fact that we just got back in town after Thanksgiving from a long trip.  Or maybe it was the fact that there aren't programs on such a grand scale here in our new state like there are in the south.  I don't know what caused it, but this year, we finally toned down the Christmas season.  We took a big time rest at our house since Thanksgiving, and it was wonderful!

We did have a Christmas party, we tried to go to our church Christmas program (5 minutes into little bit tossed her cookies - or as her daddy would say here PB&B, and he can say what he wants b/c it got all over him).  We even checked out a couple other church Christmas programs.  We went light looking, we enjoyed the company of friends.  We got some (very minimal presents - well, Santa did).  We decorated the inside of our house.  We home-made every one of our 125 Christmas cards (and somehow we still didn't get cards to all the people who are so precious to us).  We celebrated my son's big 8th birthday (though we haven't had an official party yet).  We even drove to visit with family on Christmas day, but in general, we just took it very easy.

I'm pretty sure I'm able to speak for my whole family when I say it was the best Christmas ever!  Oh...and the most magical part may have been that we actually experienced our first white Christmas ever sitting in the luxury of our own home.  It was beautiful.

I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful extra Merry Christmas this year.  May you have a very blessed New Year!