Christmas Recap 2020

 Okay, so...... Christmas.

I'll begin by saying that our original plans for Christmas were to travel.  We had planned to spend the Christmas holiday itself in Delaware with my parents, and then travel over to the D.C. area to visit with my brothers, brother-in-law, sister, and sisters-in-law in the days following Christmas.  We were especially excited about this because our adorable new niece was born in the beginning of December, and we all couldn't wait to meet her and give her some cuddles.

As you know, however, travel right now is being strongly discouraged by... well... everyone.  The surge right now in COVID cases around the country is unprecedented, even worse than it was in March and April when the world shut down.  As late as the weekend before Christmas I thought we still might be able to make it happen with lots of COVID safety precautions in place, but in the days leading up to Christmas our state government began sending out strongly worded phone calls and text messages encouraging folks to stay home, we got a strongly worded email from the superintendent of M's school district, and the governors of the states we planned to travel to were issuing stay-at-home advisories and new restrictions on gatherings, too.  After much agonizing and tears we decided that the best decision was to stay where we are.  It took me a few days to stop feeling sad after we made the decision and communicated it with my family.  They were wonderfully understanding, of course.  But it was tough all around.

After the deciding was behind us, we sort of made it our mission to find Christmas activities that would keep our spirits up.  Our first was gingerbread house construction!

(You can see by the frosting smudges on the face that much sampling took place.)

After the gingerbread building session we burned off our sugar by doing a family 5K run/walk around the neighborhood.  C and N ran with me, while L and J opted to stay at our house and cheer us on, while playing in what remained of the snow.

After we all had lunch the girls had some screen time while I prepped our annual cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning and M worked on preparing a few items for the snack supper we had planned.  The girls also helped us roll out some cookie dough and cut out sugar cookies that we would later leave out for Santa!  They kept an eye on the cookies in the oven in between playing video games.  So grateful to them for being so helpful!

We had a Zoom session with my family to present the gingerbread house masterpieces.  The girls were very proud of them!  As a side bonus we got to say hello to both our newest niece/cousin, and our other new nephew as well!!

Then it was snack supper time!  Pigs in blankets, shrimp cocktail, chex mix, allllll the cheese and crackers, and veggies and dip.

Basically it was an excuse to eat all of my favorite snacky foods, and a full glass of wine, of course.  :)  While we were eating we watched Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, one of my favorites from childhood.  All the songs about "believing in miracles" and "the goodness of loving, the gladness of living, these are Christmas too" brought an extra tear to my eye in 2020, I have to say.  I think this particular Christmas show was also pretty poignant for J this year, who as the youngest of four has had the hardest time holding on to Christmas magic when surrounded by older siblings who are slightly more cynical.  She, like Big Bird, has had lots of questions this year about Santa, and identified with his quest for reassurance pretty strongly.  This was definitely one of my favorite moments-- eating yummy food, snuggling with the girls, watching a favorite, feeling the magic.

After the snack supper things were cleared away, I retreated to my bedroom and closed the door and did all my final wrapping while M entertained the girls and got them ready for bed.  When I emerged they were in pjs and had prepared the cookies for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer.

After some quiet reading time we did lights out for the girls, as usual, at 8 PM (N is allowed to stay up until 9 these days).  To pass the time until everyone was asleep, M and I put on National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, an old favorite of ours.  It took the girls a while to settle, despite all of our efforts at wearing them out with a 5K.  Christmas excitement, you know.  This was another favorite moment of mine, however-- snuggling with M and watching a movie we hadn't seen in years, listening to the quiet rain outside, just waiting.

It was around 10:45 when we deemed it safe, and Santa came.

Lights out for Mama and Dada!  But nobody slept very well-- we had a nor'easter that night with heavy rain and high winds.  Combine all the noise of the storm with Christmas excitement and you have a recipe for a restless night and a very early wake-up.  It was about 4:45 when I heard the first girl.  I got up to use the bathroom and came back to report to M (who was also awake) that all bedroom lights were on.

M and I laid in bed sort of wondering when they would come get us and ask to open stockings, but to our surprise N and L quietly corralled the younger girls into their room and kept everyone in there, with the lights on but the door shut tightly, and we heard very little but the occasional whisper.  So we continued to lie in bed and enjoy the moment.  We whispered ourselves, talking about the movie we had watched the night before about this silly Dad trying to make Christmas special for his family, and how we see that movie much differently now than we did before we had kids.  We talked about how quickly the girls are growing up, how much they have changed in such a short time, and just generally talked about lovey-dovey stuff.  I think that moment might top the favorite moments.

At precisely 6 AM the girls' door opened and out they came into the living room, J exclaiming "he came!!" and generally squealing with excitement.  M and I rallied ourselves and got out of bed, thanking N for her responsible shepherding of the younger ones.  I think she must have remembered the several years when Mom and Dad had late-night singing responsibilities and had implored them not to come out of their rooms before 6 on Christmas morning.  She's a good egg, that one.

As is our usual way on Christmas morning, the girls weren't allowed to start opening stockings until Mama put the cinnamon rolls in the oven and had coffee in my hand.  Then we dug in!

We opened stockings gifts one at a time, which stretched out the stocking fun until about 7:30 AM, at which point we took a break to eat cinnamon rolls.

The gluten-free, dairy-free version was Monkey Bread:

After we had eaten our fill, we moved on to the tree gifts.  I loved how patient the girls were with our tradition of stretching out gift opening and going one at a time-- they all really enjoyed seeing each other's reactions to every single gift, and the gifts they chose and lovingly made for each other and for M and I were super sweet.  So many favorite moments watching that unfold.

We finished with the tree gifts around 9:30 AM, so I put the Christmas turkey in the oven!

After that it was just playing with our new gifts, another Zoom with family to share what we had gotten, a run on the treadmill for Mom & Dad in turns (to earn more food), and preparing all the turkey fixings while drinking more wine (in my new wine glasses) for Mom.  Then we feasted!

(J couldn't spare much time for eating; she had a few bites and then brought her new art project from C to the table, along with her Shimmer and Shine figurines from N.)

After feasting we cleaned up the dishes, then played on our new Nintendo Switch for the rest of the night.  As the wind and rain outside continued for the majority of the day, it was the perfect day to be cozy.

You'll notice from the pictures that almost everyone was in pjs all day.  Just the way we like our relaxing days.

2020 New Years has me even more thoughtful than usual, as I'm sure is the case with a lot of you out there, too.  Maybe I'll get a chance to write some of that out here soon.  If I don't see you, I hope your Christmas was joyful and thoughtful as was ours, and I wish you a very Happy New Year.  Here's to better times in 2021.