Traditions, old and new

I took a forced mini-break from blogging. All the posts I wrote in my head on Monday through Wednesday were neither happy nor positive. I was extremely busy and stressed at work. I was angry at the internet for ruining a loving tribute to my husband and keeping me up at night thinking of responses to rude and frequently incorrect commentors. I cried on the way home from work on Tuesday because it was 6:30 and I'd just found out JP hadn't started a dinner that took 90 minutes to cook and I'd been so busy I'd skipped lunch and I was starving and pregnant and my in-laws were landing in Austin in 30 minutes and I was stressed out beyond belief. It wasn't a good few days.

But today? Today was an awesome day. I finished up all my work last night and then curled up with JP to watch The Hangover. I can't remember the last night we spent more than 30 minutes together on the couch. I was so relaxed it felt sinful.

Also on Wednesday, in between exchanging drafts on a brief that's being filed Monday, I whipped up a triple batch of my great-grandmother's Swedish sugar cookie dough.

It was hard to allow my counter to get this messy without stopping to clean it up, but I persevered. I also ate a few cookies worth of dough- I forgot how much better it is when it's homemade. And when it's my great-grandmother's recipe.

Today, we baked and decorated the cookies. I had never made my great-grandmother's cookies by myself. Once I started, I realized that while I'd decorated these cookies in every year of my childhood, I'd never actually watched my mom cut and cook them. It was tricky. And messy. And took a very long time.

But it was so fun to know I was recreating a piece of my childhood for Landon. I even had Christmas music playing loudly in the background- all CD's that my brother copied from my mom's albums the first year JP and I were married. I'm not even sure I like many of the songs, they're just such a part of Christmas I can't imagine December without them.

This is what happened when I turned my back to take a few trays out of the oven. Landon pushed over his step stool and picked up the cookie cutting where I'd left off. He's such a good helper.

The decorating was done swiftly as we took a break between baking and icing for Landon's nap-time and mommy and daddy's gift wrapping time. We resumed at 3:00, knowing we had to leave for church at 4:00. JP and I were all about efficiency, but Landon took great care with each cookie. He was so proud of each finished product and he kept looking at JP and my cookies and encouraging us saying, "oh, they're so pretty!" I adore this kid.

After church we broke with my family's traditions and switched over to JP's and ate Christmas Eve dinner at a very fancy restaurant. The bill was probably more than what I spent on all the presents I bought combined, but it was very tasty and it's the kind of thing my in-laws really enjoy. I had to break my firm "no kids at nice restaurants" rule, but Landon was extremely good and since it was Christmas Eve, most of the tables had children at them.

In my family we normally open all our gifts on Christmas Eve, but we got home from dinner a little after Landon's bedtime, so we tucked him in and put off everything until tomorrow. It's a good thing I'm so grown up now or I wouldn't be able to stand having to wait another 12 hours.

I hope you all are enjoying a wonderful holiday. This is our first year to play Santa and I love being this excited about Christmas. I can't wait for tomorrow morning!