Christmas

I was really worried that this Christmas was going to be sad and lonely. It was our second year away from our family and it really doesn't get any easier to be so far away, especially around the holidays. Thankfully, it was neither sad nor lonely. It was really special and festive. The girls were so excited about presents and Christmas movies that there was no time (or reason) to be sad about missing our family. Christmas was really wonderful. Really, really wonderful.

Last year, it took the girls 2 days to open presents. This year we let them open some on Christmas Eve. It was a great decision because they weren't so overwhelmed with bazillions of gifts on Christmas morning. We opened our gifts slowly, playing with them as we unwrapped, then opening more as the morning went on.

I let the girls pick out JD's gift from them. We wandered Target for 20 minutes before Beatrice settled on pink tennis balls. "Daddy loves these!" my precious 3 year old declared! And he did.

We spent the entire day in our pajamas watching A Christmas Story and playing with toys.

I really wanted to make beef wellington for Christmas dinner, but a loin of filet mignon is about $1000 a pound and I just couldn't justify spending so much on a dinner for 3 and a half people, so I made a Christmas brisket. We had another candlelight dinner on our holiday china. It was nice.

While I was preparing the side dishes to our dinner, the most beautiful sunset appeared out my window. My dad always said that sunsets were God's paintings in the sky. I thought it was so glorious, I grabbed my camera. It disappeared as fast as He painted it. By the time I called JD and the girls to come see, it was gone.

We ended the night with baths and new jammies.

It was such a lovely day. I was worried it wouldn't feel extraordinary to our girls, that they wouldn't think it was special since we didn't have anywhere to go, but they loved it. It was one of my favorite Christmases too, such a great day with our little family.