I have heard those words more the last few weeks than any other year I can remember. I have heard it from my kids, their friends, my friends, our neighbors, our family, my co-workers, even the lady in line with me at the store. "The best Christmas Ever!"
Despite the cold, the snow and the economy, we were able to celebrate this season with love and laughter. Despite so many people downsizing, scaling back, giving less. Despite people being snowed in and snowed out. "The best Christmas Ever!"
I have been thinking about why. Why did my family have the best Christmas ever? Two words: expectations and meaning.
We lowered our expectations. We, as a family, talked about wanting, wanting, wanting. We discussed gift giving and how much we thought we should give and receive. We tried to remember what we asked for last year, what we received and if we even knew where all that stuff was now! We talked about reasonable expectations for gift giving this year.
Then we talked about meaning. We talked about why we celebrate Christmas and why we give gifts. We talked about who may need gifts more than us. Then we chose to do somethings different.
This year the girls asked Santa to only fill their stocking and to give their presents to kids who don't have as much as we do. On Christmas morning, when we ran downstairs to find our stocking overflowing with fun little gifts, the girls were ecstatic. They loved their paper and erasers. Their lip gloss and pony tail holders. Their candy, candy, candy. Claire even said, "I want Santa to only do our stockings again next year. This is fun!"
Now, the girls certainly didn't go without! Ella got her new desk and enough paper and supplies to man a Fortune 500 company and I'm pretty sure we now own our own American Girl Doll store thanks to Claire's collection, but they were grateful for it all. And, they really enjoyed giving their gifts almost as much as getting them this year. Ella especially enjoyed giving me the books she picked out all on her own. They had beautiful (see: voluptuous) "princesses" on the front. I'm sure Dave loved paying for those!
I feel very blessed this year that we were able to slow down, give thanks and enjoy this wonderful holiday together. We enjoyed our family, friends and lots of warm snuggling.
Merry Christmas everyone and God Bless!
