Merry Christmas!
And welcome to the other side. Phew! I am sitting here today trying to reflect on the day that was yesterday--Christmas. And to be honest, it was a pretty wild day, and we didn't even go anywhere! Every Christmas my husband and I used to fly across the country to see our family for two weeks where I inevitably would get sick as a dog and we'd wear ourselves ragged filling our holiday with visits to see all of our friends and family. We finally abandoned the "tradition" in lieu of more quiet and peaceful Christmases. But this year, the Christmas cold/flu found us anyway (and Fizey too, who awoke with a fever)! I can now fully empathize with any pregnant (slightly insomniac as of late) parent who has had a sick toddler (who is having a hard time sleeping or eating) while having a house full over Christmas. Anyone else been there? I was a completely zombie come 6pm.
But seriously, there were some really beautiful and memorable things about celebrating Christmas this year. The night before Christmas Jordan and I managed to sneak out to candlelit service where we were able to reflect on what Christmas really means to us--it was pensive and beautiful and, while it meant our day was maybe a little too jam-packed, it was nice to have a mini date with my husband.
Christmas morning, we woke up to find more snow falling softly and magically. It continued all through the day. Abe greeted us belly up for a tummy rub, sporting the antlers on his head we had forgotten to take off the night before. And we carried on our annual Christmas cinnamon buns breakfast tradition (with cream cheese icing) that we started years ago when we began having Christmas at our house. Seriously, this is the BEST cinnamon bun recipe I have ever found (I modified it a little). Here is the recipe!
And guess who got a lump of coal in their stocking?
My sister, Aunt Angie and Gabriel's "pretty pose."
My
sister flew in all the way from Prince Edward
Island to spend two weeks with us and we couldn't have been more
excited! She and Gabriel hit it off right away and he's spent most of
the past few days imitating her antics, taking her books to read to him,
giggling, laughing, building blocks and playing outside in the snow.
And so Christmas day Gabriel spent most of Christmas day bouncing from
lap to
lap, eating a zillion clementines and ripping off wrapping paper. And
when he wasn't doing that, he was leading Fizey around the house by the
hand in search of the "duh-dar" (which, roughly translated, means
"guitar").
This was Gabriel's favorite little present. When he unwrapped it and saw what it was he turned excitedly to Daddy, and with his "manly" voice half shouted, half growled "TRACTOR!!!!" It was priceless.
Gabriel learned this "suspenders" pose from guess who? None other than Aunt Angie.
Everyone got silly socks for Christmas. You might notice that you can't see mine anymore over my BIG belly!
This
year, our one big present to each other was to move the family piano
from Winnipeg to Toronto. (More on that later). And I am so glad we
did. Gabriel's clear
love for all things music and the plethora of the other musical talent
in our families means that the it won't be in vain. And we were excited
to fill our house with home-made music over the holidays. And so there
was
plenty of music between Fizey's guitar, the family piano and Aunt
Emma's fiddle. And that helped to pull us through until
supper.
And dinner was delicious!! Maybe part of it was that I didn't have to really do anything this year and that just made it extra wonderful. Thank you ChouChou!! I was more than delighted to relinquish the kitchen to the capable hands of my mother-in-law and, as always, she did a fantastic job. And so despite serious lack of sleep on my part, a "cling-on," runny noses, a fever and a few fantastic meltdowns, it wasn't so bad after all. ;) Mostly we were just so happy to have everyone here altogether.
Happy Christmas all! And here's hoping it brings you GOOD HEALTH and happiness!
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