Christmas Holidays

This has been a very, very weird Christmas season. But also probably our best year yet.

Currently isolating until we receive the results of a Covid test? Not great. Doesn’t feel very festive. (Just received a negative before publishing – yay!!!!)

But we had probably our best Christmas ever, and for that, I am grateful.

I take a video every year of the kids coming down the stairs to see what is under the tree. Every year is pretty anti-climatic. The kids don’t really show enjoyment or excitement the same as their peers. (And that is totally 100% great! I wouldn’t change them!). But this year, they actually came down and looked at their presents. Right before the video ends, you can see Penny put her arm in the air with excitement and then sit down to open her stocking.

We do a few things differently when it comes to curating Christmas for them which I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to.

1. Santa and I always make sure that Penny’s presents are on the right and Rory’s presents are on the left
2. Each kid has a specific wrapping paper from me and Shamus, and Santa doesn’t wrap his gifts, so if they know it is on the left or right, they know who owns it.
3. We ensure that we have a snack visible and unwrapped under the tree so if nothing else, they’ll sit down long enough to eat and may open some gifts while they’re there.
4. We don’t force them. We may prompt or encourage, but if the kids are not enjoying themselves, they can leave, stop, or take a break.
5. We don’t wrap all of Rory’s presents or we wrap a bunch together. He doesn’t get the enjoyment from unwrapping that a lot of kids do – Penny included.

Last year, and many years before, this meant that Rory was in the dining room watching everyone open presents on Christmas morning. He played with the toys when he felt like it but wasn’t really involved.

This year, we barely had to prompt them. Especially Penny. They tore through their gifts before my mom and stepdad even made it to our house in the morning. There have been some years where we’re still unwrapping the next day.

This year, Penny also was very into pouring up milk and taking out cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. It was very sweet. She pretended to drink it to make us laugh, and I love when her humour shines through. She’s a funny kid.

Our whole Christmas season wasn’t all great, don’t get me wrong. The Christmas Parade, which has always been a hit, was an epic failure. I was really proud of myself for not focusing on it though. We also tried a few of the Christmas walks and Penny was not having the one at Bowering Park in particular. It was very cold and she reminded me of that for the entirety of our time there. She did enjoy the ducks though.

Actually, one of the things Penny is super into right now is if she gets a thought in her head, she just repeats it over and over and over again. Like, if it’s cold. “it’s cold. It’s very cold. It’s freezing. It’s cold. Cold. It’s cold. It’s cold. FREEZING. It’s cold. I cold…” until she’s out of the cold. We joke that we can’t believe we spent our hard earned money trying to help her learn to speak when now she sometimes repeats the same thing for 45 minutes and drives us crazy. In saying that, I love that she talks enough sometimes that she can drive us nuts. One of those, “I wished for this”.

Speaking of “I wished for this”, Rory has become particularly obsessed with me. He is my shadow. A magnet. As I typed this he walked into my office and is standing beside me. For so long he really didn’t care if I was in the house or not, but man, he won’t let me out of his sight now. I’ve been working full-time since he was 10 months old, and he has cried for me to come home. Not even just not wanting me to leave the house – actively asking for me to come home. The amount of cuddles I get in a day is astronomical, and again, I did wish for this but man, I am touched out by the end of the day.

One of the great things about Christmas too, is that we have so many traditions that the kids actually thrive with that type of routine and expectation. We know what we’re doing on Christmas eve to Christmas Day. It’s pretty cool to be able to tell them what we’re going to do when and they don’t even bat an eye. Routine is their favourite. And mine too, honestly. We had family around from Christmas day until Boxing day, and Penny spent most of the time with us.

To any families who did not have a great time, we’ve been there. I try to remind myself to not compare to other families and just think about our family and what big and small accomplishments the kids have made.

Here are some photos from our Christmas. I’m going to leave out the last 3…4? days of isolating because we look like shit hahaha