Going home so recently made being far from home more bearable for the holidays. It's funny, I think to this day I still consider the family Lester and I have created to be just our 'little' family, although with 6 of us we are far from that. In the end, I actually think it was really good for us, and made for a lot of cherished memories and I'm grateful for the time that we got to create that.
Before their break started, the kids had a lot of fun events at school, with winter performances, class parties and dress up days. Lester finished a long stretch of long, rough rotations and was on a much easier schedule [and continues to be] which meant we also got to do lots of fun things together in the evenings and weekends. Like trips to Seattle, night time lights and carousel rides in our little downtown, a local Nativity festival, etc. In that time, it went from being dark and rainy to a complete winter wonderland. We spent a lot of days playing in the backyard snow, making angels and building snow people, with lots of breaks for hot chocolate and wassail. We watched lots of holiday movies and music, read lots of stories [and wrote a few-Isla is our budding author], did some fun art projects, and of course, baked and cooked to our hearts content. We played games, and did a lot of cuddling as the roads continued to get icier and undriveable, and enjoyed having a warm house to hunker down in.
On Christmas Eve, we let the kids each open one present and had a fun movie night together that ended up being great. On Christmas morning, we told the kids they couldn't wake up earlier then 6:00 so on the dot, we heard running feet to the living room to look through stockings and see what Santa had brought them. We joined them and it was a really fun morning watching and feeling the magic they felt. Made for a lot of good memories. Afterward we had a delicious, slow paced breakfast, we went to a musical program at the local church, before coming home to open up the rest of the presents. Then we all worked together to prepare a big meal [which we usually don't do, but since we weren't all together on Thanksgiving we decided to do the greatest hits from then] and do more games, movies, face timing, and play time. I even got a nap in, and we spent the evening feeling full, and warm and peaceful, which is something we could all use more of. Then today, we eventually made our way over to Everett for some brunch and a great kids museum.
All in all, it was not what I'm used to for the holidays-but it was absolutely what I think we all NEEDED, and I'm so so grateful for it. Today, I feel good. And life feels good. And I'm happy with that.
