I do this every year:
I’m happy and content with our minimalist Christmas until Christmas Eve hits and everyone starts posting photos of kids in new pajamas, stacks of presents under the tree, and SantaWatch with cookies and reindeer food. Suddenly, our holiday seems meager and plain and unimportant and I start feeling guilty: My kids are going to grow up and have Christmases of excess to make up for not having presents under the tree. They’ll go back to school and everyone will have loads of new clothes and electronics and the boys won’t have anything new to show off. Their future spouse/therapist is going to think I’m a horrible mother. Ackkk! I’m making a huge mistake.
Good thing that by then it’s too late to do anything about it or I’d be like the mom in Christmas With the Kranks who tries to pull together a full Christmas extravaganza at 4pm on Christmas Eve. Instead, last night I sorted through all the December candy that my kids have collected (Halloween through Christmas is one big trail of candy these days — it drives me crazy) and I took all of the candy canes, chocolates and gum and dropped them in the stockings to give them some added weight. If I can get all of the extra sugar out of my house before New Year’s I’ll be happy. I also added coupons for knitting lessons (they’ve all been begging me to teach them since I’ve been teaching a friend to knit once a week) and a coupon for a kindle book for each. It assuaged my guilt a bit.
This morning we slept in, had omelets and hot chocolate for breakfast, read the Christmas story out of Luke 2 and then opened a few things that the kids had made or purchased for each other at the school Christmas store. Some coffee, bubbles, gum, a winter themed rubix cube, and a few snack foods were opened and then we gave them an Xbox game that I had Josh pick up yesterday (see! Holiday guilt!) that they played for the rest of the morning. Wipeout 3 for Kinect is hilarious to watch. Running, jumping, ducking and avatars getting bounced around on Big Red Balls is what Christmas is all about, right?
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| Ready for Christmas Lunch on base |
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| She picked out this outfit all by herself — gray leggings, purple shoes, pink tutu, layered shirts and flower hair clips. |
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| Josh laughs at how she’s frilly one minute and a bruiser the next |
After the kids were tired out we went to Christmas Day lunch on base where they had a lunch buffet for all service members and their families. This afternoon we’ll rest and then open stockings in the evening and watch a Christmas movie together. Last night we put on The Santa Clause — tonight Carter is voting for Santa Clause 2, Calvin wants A Christmas Story and Caleb probably wants something that nobody else in the family wants to watch. Then he’ll cry and pout until he starts to enjoy the movie that we actually decide to watch and then he’ll apologize when it’s over and say he really liked it after all. It happens every time.
The most interesting thing about Christmas at our house is that every year looks different, very different, because we keep moving around, shedding stuff, and acquiring new kids along the way. Next year will be the first time in 4 years where we’ll be doing Christmas in the same place. Unless we go home for Christmas (probably not), or travel over Christmas (a possibility), or get evacuated again (I’ve learned to never rule that one out). Until then, Merry Christmas from Bahrain!
