Its Christmastime!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! (or so the song says…)

I really loved the kids Sunday best Christmas attire this year. I got Jani’s dress as a hand-me-down from a good friend, and decided to plan everything around that.  The boys ties were all the same fabric as the dress and I loved them!  I wish I could have convinced them to hold still for a better picture, but this is what you get with 5 kids. Oh well, at least they are clean, and their hair is combed.

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents home this year. Again, I really didn’t manage to get any decent pictures. I am on a roll with my camera being broken.  The only pics I have this year are from Seth’s phone and they are sketchy at best, but at least we have them.

And of course the required Christmas Eve jammies photo.  This is the first year ever that I didn’t make my kids wear Christmas-themed jammies and I actually liked it a lot.  This way, they got to wear their pajamas all year round and poor Smurf isn’t stuck with 13 pairs of all red & green hand-me-downs.

Christmas morning brought the usual hub-bub of excitement, toys and wrapping paper being haphazardly tossed about.

It was all very routine-Christmas stuff. You know, same-old, same-old.  That is, everything but one thing….

I did something I have wanted to do for a long time, but never had the gumption. I planned months ahead and decided to do the 12 days of Christmas for a family.  Only problem was, I couldn’t decide on a family because there were too many great opportunities! So, we went with 3 families. I knew this was going to be stressful, and somewhat difficult to pull off, but I really felt strongly that these were the 3 families I wanted to give to.  They are all special people to me and I had different reasons for wanting to do something for them. First was my best friend Michelle’s family.  Theirs was an obvious choice.  Pretty much Michelle spends the whole year doing nice things for me, so I wanted to take 12 days to give back and tell her thanks! Second was my mother & father in law who we are so lucky to live right down the street from.  Lesli had been through a really rough patch and had been feeling a little depressed, so I wanted to do something to bring her Christmas Cheer.  It was funny because her husband Art kept asking her why people were leaving them presents.  He said “Do people around here think we are poor or something?  I thought you only did ‘12 days of Christmas’ for needy people”. Oh dear sweet Art…. And 3rd was a family who lives right behind me but we actually don’t know very well.  They don’t go to our church and they don’t have children so we don’t get as many opportunities to cross paths, but they had been so kind and helped me out the year before when we moved to Price, so I wanted to do something nice back!

So, there you go.  The stage is set.  I had my 3 families. I told the kids about the plan, and they were excited, and actually helped out a lot at first. But after a few days I realized I couldn’t keep the secret going unless I went out late at night. So it basically became my own little Christmas project. Seth was gone many of the nights so it was just me, waiting up till midnight, driving around the neighborhood in the cold, wondering what had possessed me to do such a thing.  Until the next day.  Michelle would report to me what her secret Santa had brought and tell me how excited her kids were.  It was so much fun and made it all worth it! With only 3 days left to go, though, we had a surprise ourselves.  My backdoor neighbors had decided that they wanted to find out who was doing this for them, so they set up a hidden camera.  It was the weekend, so I sent Seth to do the dropping off that night.  When he went to Cori’s door (at 1:00 am!!), she popped open the door and yelled “Aha!” Well, poor Seth nearly had a heart attack! He and Cori had a good laugh and a few awkward moments, and then he came home to tell me all about it. The next night when we went to drop off the gift, there was a gift waiting for us instead with a note. Cori said she was so sorry for ruining our fun like that.  She just had let her curiosity get the best of her and she and her husband were taking bets to see if they had become some sort of “Come back to Church” project. Now, honestly, this had never even crossed my mind and I had no idea they were members in the first place. Anyway- her nice note said they were so glad it was us and they had felt the Christmas spirit in a way they had not felt in years. She said we had inspired her to try to do more to keep that spirit in her life.  Lo and behold the next day was Sunday.  The Sunday before Christmas, (the best Sunday of the year) and I nearly fell over dead when I say Ben and Cori walk into Sacrament meeting.  She gave me a big hug and said thank you again and I sat through that entire meeting with big tears rolling down my face.

I think often I get so jaded at Christmastime.  It all becomes a big chore.  Getting all the decorating, cleaning, shopping, baking, running here & there,  & everything else accomplished, sometimes I am ashamed to admit I just want it all over with.  That Sunday I got to spend one hour really enjoying what it means to celebrate Christmas. 

On the last day we took a framed picture of Christ to each house in person. Our other 2 houses had also left gifts and thank-you notes for us.  Grandma Lesli cried when she discovered it was us.  We had such a good time seeing everyone and sharing each of our experiences. It was truly the best thing that happened to me this year.  I know it’s a little cliché, but I never realized that doing something for someone else would be so rewarding for me.  It was truly the highlight of my Christmas.

So sorry for the incredibly long post, but I wanted to remember the story so I had to write it down! Hope you & yours had a wonderful holiday season!