Wednesday December 25, 2019

Christmas morning, Christmas Day.

So fun to see everyone enjoying their day!  For us on a day like today, it’s usually an “everything is closed so what are we going to do with ourselves” kind of day. In the past, before kids, Jason and I would take part in the movies and Chinese food tradition, as you would find most people who are Jewish doing the same, but now it’s too crowded and too much planning and we just aren’t into it anymore. Maybe later we’ll order Chinese food in, but we know on a night like tonight we have to have our order placed at least 3 hours in advance, or else we’ll never get our food.

When I was younger, I remember going to Atlantic City on Christmas Eve to Christmas Day and that was always fun. Back then Tropicana was Trop World and it had an indoor amusement park. Rides, arcade games, it was the best. So my sister and I, and whoever else came to meet us down there would drop us kids off there and the grown ups would go do their thing. It was so much fun. But that doesn’t exist anymore. And we went away for for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day 2 years ago when I was pregnant with Ryan. We took Matthew to Hershey park for the night. We said we would go back last year but because of my situation, it just didn’t work out. So we kept saying for this year we’d take both the kids for the night. But Jason had to work yesterday and has to work tomorrow so it wasn’t going to work. Turns out not being able to go anywhere overnight this year as a family, was actually a blessing in disguise.

When is the last time you were actually able to say you could feel your heart feeling happy? I mean there are tons of things that happen everyday that make me happy but feeling that warm, fuzzy, happy feeling that you can feel in your heart and encompasses your entire upper body..... that’s exactly how I can describe how I felt this morning.

It’s still very hard for me to get out of bed in the morning. It’s a new me.... I have to have about a half hour or so before I actually come to, after initially waking up. Everyone here is used to it so this morning my kids jumped into our bed and we all snuggled and watched Ryan’s kids songs, and that’s my favorite way to wake up. Once I was finally up and out of bed, I took my coffee over to a chair in our living room where my kids were playing and I just sat back and watched. Jason was on the floor with the both of them but he was just hanging back too. And for the first time, in a very, very long time, we didn’t have to play with them. My two little boys were playing with each other. Without us. I looked at them, I looked at Jason watching them playing, and that heartwarming feeling came over me. Our kids are finally at the age where they can start to play together. I saw this a few weeks ago as well when I took both kids to an open play place, but it wasn’t until this morning when we were finally just hanging out as a family that I was able to see it in our own house. Just the 4 of us. Then I also realized that we haven’t sat together like this, as a family with nothing to do, in a long time as well. The weekends have also been busy, with karate and tball before it ended, and other things going on, and before all of that for the past almost year, I spent my weekends in bed. I missed out on a ton of family time. This morning and even right now, it’s absolutely perfect. Ryan is napping, Matthew is playing outside with Jason, and I’m sitting with my feet up. And maybe I’ll heat up some fun snacks for us in a bit.

We don’t celebrate Christmas, we don’t open presents up on Christmas morning, but I can assure you I have the exact same sentiments, gratitude, and all around happiness that I see in all of your beautiful family pictures this today. I feel so lucky, so grateful for everything I do have and for everyone that I have in my life, and so thankful for these precious moments where life can really slow down, even when you weren’t expecting it to or had other ideas that didn’t pan out.

A year ago today I was very frightful of what was to come. Here we are a year later and I’m sitting here today relaxing at home with my family, and I know it’s exactly where we are supposed to be. Thankful, grateful, happy, and extremely blessed. That’s what today is all about and I’m right here with all of you.

Merry Christmas to all of you out there who are celebrating today. Happy Hanukkah to the rest of my crew. And happy everything to everyone else. 💗