So. December can eat my butt. However, Christmas this year was really great.
I don’t even know what actually happened to the entire month of December (or really even November), but I know we were busy and I am tired.
Yesterday was so great though. First, the kids let me sleep in to 530! Last year they were up at like 3am and were too excited to go back to sleep, so we gave up and got up with them. EVERYONE cut waaaaaaaayyyyy back on presents and we were done opening all of them in about 2 hours. That might sound like a long time but we open presents one at the time and I expect a captive audience cause D-I-V-A.
Since we were done opening early, the kids had lots of time to just PLAY. I ignored all of my chores and I played too. I took many many many many many many dolls to the long-overdue mommy hair salon. I beybladed. We built legos and wrote in our new journals and did trivia on the echo dots and just, generally, had a great day of enjoying each other.

Enjoying my family and friends is what I craved more of this Christmas. I feel like we are always so busy Christmasing that we can’t Christmas. This year I was so tired and overwhelemed that not only did I not do any Christmas cards myself, but I didn’t open them until the night of the 23rd. On the plus side, we sat around together and opened them and I told stories about all of you and things I love about you to the kids and it was really special. They were enamoured and I feel like that’s exactly what Christmas cards should really be about. That new tradition is sticking around for sure!
I might have also cried 2x at Christmas Eve breakfast in the bathroom stall out of pure exhaustion from managing magic and dealing with little people with big feelings… also my hashbrowns were cold. I didn’t cry about those- but if I had I wouldnt feel bad at all.

After Christmas Eve brunch, 75% of my kids screamed for a solid hour. They were EXHAUSTED. I totally understood where they were coming from but lawd. Once we got them all dressed for Church, I didn’t even attempt a group picture because it was just too too much. Thankfully, my mom snapped individual shots of the kids for me.

Everyone’s attitudes returned to normal and Christmas Eve was as happy as Christmas Day. All in all, from about 2pm Christmas Eve to 6pm Christmas Day was my favorite chunk of the holidays.

The house is sorta kinda back in order from all the unwrapping, but I cannot be the only mom who’s head gets dangerously close to spinning around at the site of the Christmas carnage. I may have also yelled at my kids “I have spent 2 weeks making your lives magical and shit! I am going to take a well-deserved nap. Don’t wake me up!” Spoiler alert: they woke me up after 30 minutes. Tired mommy gets a little grinchy. Can you be a grinch technically AFTER Christmas? Sure you can.

I am hoping for a good night’s sleep and I am headed back to work tomorrow. I am really excited about some projects I am working on and am looking forward to a blog about that soon. Stay tuned!