7 More Days Until Christmas...(But Really 6)

Can you believe Christmas is a week away?  In the last few years, our gift purchasing always ends up a last minute scramble.  I blame Amazon and our Prime membership because we use it as a crutch to wait, only to find that not everything is on Amazon or is available to ship.  Throw in the fact that BB and DD don’t like conventional toys.  Throw in the additional fact that they are really at the age, BB especially, where they’ve outgrown toys for the most part.  My hope that this is the last year of excess gift purchasing and that we move both of them onto either one large gift each that they really need/want or a few smaller items that fall in the same category, and then one vacation that we splurge on.  I have a year to get everyone on board with this plan!

Meanwhile, we are doing little holiday things here and there – seeing lights, adorning the house, putting up the tree, decorating our gingerbread houses, sending out cards.  We’ve definitely done more in previous years in comparison, which most likely is leading to my current stress levels.  Ultimately, what's really got me a bit worried is that we will be celebrating a day earlier than usual. C and I decided that the kids should open their gifts on Christmas Eve morning rather than Christmas since we'll be traveling on Christmas.  The boys will probably want at least a day to enjoy their new presents.  So that's why I really have 6 days to go, not 7.

This is not to say that we’re not having fun.  We got a few early snowfalls this December which really added to our enthusiasm for the season.  And like all children, the promise of winter break and unstructured time spent all together definitely is something we can’t wait for!  So I’m keeping all those good thoughts in mind as we power through this last week before Christmas!