7 Days of Christmas

Home at last. We returned last night from a wonderful week in Family Land. We celebrated BIG with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. It was a fitting finale to a month of decorating and to-dos, gift lists, big trees + small, cards, countdown bags, books, baking, stories, and craft projects. I loved every minute of December, but I'm so done with it. I can't wait to clean up and start anew.

Buby + Bleu were troopers all week as we pranced around from party to party and unwrapped gifts in not one ~ not two ~ but SIX places. We played a lot. We ate a lot. We watched as the older cousins and the younger ones amazed us with their new tricks. Little ones grow up too fast, and I wish we never had to miss a moment of it. They serve as constant reminders of how blessed we are.

If I had to describe our Christmas in one word I'd go with abundance. Of family. Of love. Of food. Of generosity. Of packing and unpacking. Of memories. We tried so hard to simplify things on our end. You know, in tiny ways like using more tissue paper than wrapping paper, which I generally find less tolerable. Or like sleeping in one place the whole time. Or exchanging with fewer adults. Or bringing my own organic food + snacks for the kids so I didn't have to worry about what'd they eat on the run all week. Yet somehow this annual end-of-year jaunt is never really simplifyable. Maybe it's not meant to be.

By Monday the 4 of us were spent. Bleu hadn't slept much all week {by "much" I mean not at all} despite my best efforts to provide some sort of routine, and Buby kept saying he missed his playroom. Over and over. We travel to Family Land several times a year {more often in summer}, and it's the first time Buby has ever asked us to go home. So I think we're all happy to be back and ready to ring in the New Year in our jammies. No work and no school until Monday. Yip!

I want to say THANK YOU again to our families for being so awesome and going to all the trouble every year to host us, feed us, and shower us with fun + games. We appreciate you all. Photos coming!