My Christmas In a Nutshell...

Hello again! 

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  I had a fabulous, busy and fun filled Christmas back home with my family.  Before we headed back to Michigan, I had myself all worked up and overwhelmed that everything would not go as I had it planned in my mind.  I was worried about how Christmas morning would unfold being away from my own home and our normal routine in the past years.  This year, brought upon us an entirely new experience.  I was not quite sure what to expect. I was excited, anxious, and everything in between!  I am such a routine being that something like this is huge for me!  I, of course, wanted Christmas morning to be perfect for Emma and I was determined to pull it off. 

It all started with figuring out how to sneak the few things that I bought prior to heading north, into the car without her seeing them. I had some things shipped and some shopping to do when we got back home.  Keep in mind that ,yes, I do drive an SUV, but, we also had our black lab in the entire cargo area of the car.  This left half of the backseat to fit all the suitcases and everything that we were taking back home with us.  A tight squeeze to say the very least.  It was practically piled to the ceiling and I packed as light as I could!  What can I say...I hate not having choices in my suitcase and extra things just in case. 




This is what it is like traveling with a large dog who freaks when you hit rumble strips in the center of the road when passing slow drivers!  Funny to see a very large dog get scared and try to jump over the seat!
 

Once we arrived home, we stayed at my brother's house. It is hard for me to be staying in someone elses home, even if it is family.  I feel like I am invading others space.  In addition to that, I feel out of my realm of things not doing laundry or cleaning and going about my could you possibly guess....routine!  In fact, I even considered heading back to my own home on Christmas Eve just to have my routine.  Pretty sad, I know! 

Well, we stayed and I am so glad that we did.  On Christmas Eve, we started the morning with brunch at my dad's house and ended the day with my hubby's family.  When we were done with the festivities for the day, it was time to begin wrapping...I had nothing wrapped!  My brother, sister-in-law, hubby and myself had some work cut out for us once we had the kids tucked into bed for the night.  We hauled it all out in the living room and it looked like Santa's flippin' workshop! We were all busy wrapping, assembling and rolling with laughter!  I had not laughed that hard in a very long time.  My brother and I get together and it often ends up like comedy central for some reason.  There is nothing better than laughing so hard that you are left in tears and can hardly breathe.  I could use a dose of that type of laughter daily!  Several hours later...around 1a.m.... we were able to turn into bed for the night. 

Christmas morning, believe it or not, did not start until 8 o'clock!  The kids slept much later that I would have ever expected!  It was wonderful!  Each year, I love to see the excitement in Emma's eyes and this year I was able to also share the excitement of my niece and nephew.  The kids were thrilled with each and every gift that they received.  The joy in finding what they wished for beneath the tree was priceless.  Emma's big things under the tree this year were a new American Girl doll, a new scooter and many other various toys.  She was less than thrilled with the new clothes that I gave her.  In fact, after opening two boxes of clothes and finding another two boxes that were the last boxes to open, she said, "I don't want to open those...I know they are just more clothes."  Priceless!  She actually loved the clothes but, they aren't much fun to play with.  It is so funny how much time we spend wrapping everything just right and how quickly it all unravels into a mess of wrapping paper scraps.  The beauty of the holiday, I suppose.  Once it was somewhat cleaned up, I headed directly to the shower...it was all I could do not to do it before the festivities but, the kids likely would have gone crazy!  I was pretty proud that I was able to hang in my pj's for as long as I did!  A huge step for me!  Hooray! 

Our next and final stop for the day was to my sister's house for her wonderful Christmas dinner.  She always puts on a fabulous holiday meal.  All of my favorites...ham, green beans, mashed potatoes (Emma's favorite), rolls, fruit salad.  What more could you want?!  Well, actually, now that I am thinking about it...Suzy, you forgot Michael's very favorite, carrots!  This year, my oldest nephew, Alex, was not able to make it home because he was in Georgia for his Professional Golf Management internship.  So, instead of him physically joining us at the table, we Skyped him and sat him on a chair at the table.  This was really quite fun and it seemed like he was there with us as usual. 

We even fed him mashed potatoes! 

After enjoying a wonderful meal and time spent with the entire family, we headed back to my brother's house exhausted from all of the busyness.  I was lucky enough to end our holiday and time spent at home with another large dose of laughter!  Michael...this is for you..."Where the #*!@ are the forks?"  And also, thanks for introducing me to a new show that happened to be a "to be continued" episode and also going off the air!  I have to watch the second half that I fortunately DVR'd.  I love you brother!

This Christmas holiday may have been one that gave me lots of anxiety wondering how it would all play out but, I must say that it is one of the best ones that I can remember having in a very long time.  Thanks to my wonderful family...I love you all bunches! I am so lucky to have each and every one of you in my life.  I look forward to next year!  :)