A grown up Christmas wish

Matt's mom lives in a nearby suburb, and has had Christmas at her house with her kids forever. My parent's live in Kansas, and due to the fact that we had no nearby relatives, we never had Christmas with extended family when I was growing up. We also never traveled on Christmas to visit relatives because my dad was a pastor and had to be in town for the Christmas Eve service.

So, I guess I'm having holiday blues because I feel like Matt and the kids and I are sorta Christmas junkies running from house to house trying to put mooch off of everyone else's Christmas and having nothing of our own. Now, Matt and I really do want to each be with our families over Christmas, so it's not that we really want to be alone for the whole Christmas day, but I'm starting to think that during my kids' entire growing up years, I'm never going to cook a turkey or wear the apron on Christmas day. We even pack our presents for the kids into the car and drive them over to Grandma's house Christmas morning, so my kids will never run up the stairs to open presents in their pajamas at our house.

Christmas morning here is microwaving something for the kids to eat in the car during the 30 minute drive to Grandma's house and Matt swearing and digging the car out of snow. That's no good, is it?

We both know that we aren't quite ready to spend the whole holiday at our house alone, but I guess I wonder if I'll ever be the mom who hosts the extended family here or if I'll at least figure out some good traditions to do around the traveling that are unique to our little family. Don't get me wrong, we did lots of festive stuff this month. As you can tell from the photos, we built our annual urban snowman, which entails bringing a pan full of snow from our front yard into the house and making a 6 inch tall Frosty. And I do at least have a small manger scene. Didn't you know about the parakeets that visited baby Jesus? Claire thinks it's hilarious to put Penny's food by the other animals.

We made a gingerbread house too. Alright, alright...it was from a kit purchased at Trader Joe's, but we made it and there were no tears involved which was a bonus. But I digress. Because the problem isn't our lack of doing anything fun and Christmas-y; the problem is feeling like we run around like chickens with our heads cut off on the actual week of Christmas and end up feeling like the kids and not the parents of our kids. So, I declared we were staying home today and Matt agreed. He's getting off of work around noon, and then he'll come home to hang out with us for the rest of the day.

We may not find a Christmas Eve service to attend. We may not even figure out a good tradition to do on this day, but at least we're starting the tradition of spending this day together NOT travelling. And, in the morning, when the kids wake up (since they wake up early anyway) I think we're going to let them run up and open their presents before going to Grandma's house to avoid the packing of the presents and all that. And that way, instead of trying to ooh and aaah over Matt's grandpa's new flannel shirt while yelling at Sammy to stop opening gifts without asking, I can just sit back with my coffee and help them assemble their new bow and arrow sets.

Here's to trying to be a grown up one of these days! Merry Christmas all!!!