Decking our Halls

For the first time in my life, I will not be at my parent's house for Christmas. The holidays were divided early on in the pregnancy: JP and I would visit Houston for Thanksgiving and the baptism and his parents would come to Chicago for Landon's first Christmas (we never pretended it was about seeing us- it was all about who got to see the baby when). We spent out first two married Christmases with my parents, so it was JP's family's turn, and we really wanted to avoid packing up the presents and dealing with the inevitable airport delays. JP is an only child, so we knew it would be easy for his family to come to us. I'm excited to be in Chicago over the holidays- it's our last one here and the city is so beautiful right now, but it's going to be a little sad to not be home.

My family has always celebrated Christmas alone with just the five of us. Most of my friends find that strange- their Christmas is all about big family gatherings and all the fun and stress that comes with them, but I cherished our little Christmas. As a kid I loved our special family traditions: dressing up and eating a prime rib Christmas Eve dinner in the dining room, taking turns reading the Bible story, going to the 7:00 church service, driving around to look at the Christmas lights, and then going home to open presents. The present-opening had its traditions too: wearing cozy pj's, listening to our favorite Christmas albums (A Sesame Street Christmas and Raffi's Christmas album were huge), eating popcorn and sugar cookies, sitting on the floor around the tree, and taking turns opening each present. On Christmas morning I always woke up first and had the arduous task of rousing my younger sister (my little brother would help). We'd yell downstairs to our parents that we were ready to see what Santa brought, and then we'd sit at the top of the steps and wait for my mom to get ready and Dad to try (and usually fail) to get the ancient video camera up and working. After waiting for forever we'd finally be allowed to run downstairs to look at our gifts (my mom hates wrapping presents and interestingly, so did Santa, so our Santa presents were just out in the open). Our stockings always contained an orange, chapstick, and a toothbrush, among other little things, and we got one big gift each and a few family ones like movies and games to share. My dad always took us out to the driveway to see if Santa brought him a boat (and when I was really little, I couldn't understand why Santa didn't bring him one. He had been so good!). Christmas wasn't huge, but the Santa gift was always something exciting that we had waited and hoped for. We'd eat a big breakfast (complete with more Christmas cookies) and then play with our toys. As we got older and the toys didn't lend themselves to playing as easily, we'd go see a movie in the afternoon. Almost all of my mom's family lives in areas surrounding Houston so we'd often see some aunts, uncles, cousins, and/or grandparents at some point on the 25th or 26th. It was nice to see family over the holidays while keeping Christmas Eve and morning to ourselves. I think that's what I would like to do as JP and my family grows. My memories of Christmas are so happy and relaxed, and when JP and I are two full-time working parents, that is going to be lovely.

So that was a nice though unintended trip down memory lane... now back to the point: Christmas will be at our apartment this year with JP's parents and grandmother and I realized we didn't own a single Christmas item. Since we're moving to Austin over the summer I didn't want to buy nice stuff that may or may not work in our future home, so I thought we'd go fun and cheap. I bought an adorable 3 foot tree to go on the table, some multi-colored blinking lights (that I would normally hate but Landon is going to love), garland to string over the fireplace to pretend we have a mantle, and mini stockings to hang on the garland. We now have Christmas candy in a Christmas candy dish and little red bows attached to a makeshift Christmas-card basket. There are Christmas songs queued up on iTunes and I am going to try baking my mom's Christmas cookies. It will be different, and it might be a little sad (ok, I'm already tearing up just thinking about not being home, so maybe more than a little), but it's going to be special in its own way. We're together as a family (something that means even more than I imagined) and starting our own traditions. I think growing up is done in pieces, and this is just another one. Hopefully someday Landon will talk about our Christmas traditions with the same love and nostalgia that I feel for mine