Some Thoughts on Christmas

1. The Christmas season this year was hard for us. I remember doing the advent box with Camryn on Dec. 1, Dec. 2, and Dec. 3 and thinking, "Wow! These days are going by pretty slowly. Maybe this year the Christmas season won't fly by!" The next two weeks after that are a blur of sicknesses and things that went wrong or broke. We finally started to see the light at the end of the tunnel the week before Christmas, and then before I knew it, it was here and gone.

2. If you didn't get a Christmas card from me this year, please don't be offended. No one did. I usually get Christmas cards out the 2nd or 3rd week of December, and if you will refer to #1, you'll understand why that just didn't happen this year.

3. Christmas cards were just one of the many things that didn't quite happen this season.

4. We spent way too much money this year on Christmas but realized this is the first year since we've been married that not a single bit of it went on a credit card. Every penny was paid with cash. Thank you, Dave Ramsey.

5. On Christmas morning, there was a moment I stood up and surveyed the room. There were toys everywhere and two sweet little girls in the middle of it all playing contentedly side by side. It made my heart happy.

6. It was hard to get Camryn excited about presents this year. It was almost like she turned 14 overnight and didn't think it was cool to be excited about her gifts. However, one of the best moments of Christmas was when she opened her Leapster and said, "I've always wanted one of these" (translation: I've wanted one since October when I played with it in Target). But after she said that, she looked up, paused for a minute, then practically threw herself on her daddy and hugged him for the longest time and told him thank you. Then she came over to me, put both her arms around my neck, hugged me so tightly and told me thank you ... all unprompted. I had to wipe away some tears.