Happy Holidays Part II

I’m pleased to be getting this post up BEFORE the New Year (go me)!  I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season! We made it through exhausted but really happy and grateful for wonderful family and friends. I will pick up where I left off on in my last holiday festivity post starting with Christmas cookie baking at Nana’s.

Of course like everything else around these parts, there is a back story to my Christmas cookie baking. It all started when my husband became a manger at his job in 2010. I started baking cookies for his team then, blissfully unaware of the challenges ahead. He works in a very high paced, sometimes stressful environment and I wanted to do something nice for the guys who work so hard for him so I figured I’d make them Christmas cookies. Sounded simple enough, although that year I found out what a true labor of love making several different kinds of cookies in one day can be. Still, I went through with it and all 5 employees loved their cookies. Fast forward a few years, we had a baby and there went from 5 employees to 15 just in his department alone. Believe it or not, with a 6 month old in tow, I made Christmas cookies that year and even the year after that. Finally last year, I remembered how tiring and difficult it was and I “retired” from baking. (Last year was also the year I didn’t get out my Christmas cards…opps) Anyways, somehow this year, I felt the need to spread extra holiday cheer and so I was back in the cookie business! I couldn’t make enough for the now 50 people who work at the place but I was going to at least make enough for my husband’s employees. The only problem…our oven broke a few weeks back :( so an activity that secretly stresses me out and has me crying into a bottle of cheap wine afterwards from exhaustion was suddenly going to have to be shared with another adult. Enter Nana.

It was actually a little less stressful at Nana’s house since her kitchen is a lot bigger and she has a large dining table to use. Emma and Nana really enjoyed cutting out the cookie shapes and decorating the sugar cookies while mommy ran around making a million other batches. In the end, we ended up with two batches of sugar cookies, two batches of peanut butter/ chocolate cookies, two batches of double fudge cookies, a batch of easy bake Christmas tree cookies (what you think I was going to make them all “from scratch” lol), a batch of chocolate chip (that burned), and a batch of chocolate peppermint.  I bagged them up and proceeded to pass out the minute I got home.

That same evening (thank goodness for a nap), was our ugly sweater party! An old college friend of mine throws holiday parties with a theme every year. One year it was a crazy Christmas hat theme. Another year was dress up like your favorite Christmas character (that coincidentally was the year I dressed up as Mary to announce I was pregnant). We had a lot of fun finding authentic ugly sweaters at the thrift store for this year’s theme. I was super excited to find Emma one too! (Although, it is actually kind of a cool sweater.) Thomas ended up making his own sweater with ornaments and stuffed animals sewn on which was awesome and then didn’t end up wearing it in favor of his cool, store bought, local brewery sweater.

Stop…..birthday party time….

Our next event was a sweet little 4 year old birthday party for some family friends. The one shot I got of the party is of the awesome, dairy free, homemade cake from the birthday girl’s mom that I dreamed about since last year’s party. I literally had two bites of cake left I couldn’t eat and I brought it home with me to eat later. It was THAT good!

Then on Tuesday, at 11am (because EVERYONE is totally available mid-day on a Tuesday…) was Emma’s Christmas Pageant. I was so excited we got there early and nabbed the coveted “front row” seat (behind the rows where the kids sat). The kids looked so cute dressed up! Emma’s class was shepherds. They had pillow cases on their heads with head bands holding them up. I about died of cuteness overload! Maybe it’s because Emma is a little older or maybe she was just in the mood to perform, but she actually sang all the songs and enjoyed herself! No random nudity like the Spring show of 2015! My only bone to pick with the whole ordeal was that some over eager father decided it would be cool to position himself right in front of Emma to record his son on his phone. I was like um yeah if you want to record your child I have no problem with that but for the love of all things go and stand in front of your own kid to do it! I wonder how many other parents now have this guy on their phone recordings for all eternity. (I know one who does).

Finally Christmas Eve came and with it, the cousins. They were wild and crazy just like kids are supposed to be. I was only really nervous when the dads left to pick up the pizza and I was left alone with three energetic kids. I survived thankfully, nothing was broken, and no one was hurt, so I can safely say I have moved up to level expert when it comes to watching multiple kids at once… maybe. They were actually surprisingly well behaved, just naturally curious and excited to be in a new environment with "new to them" toys.

We ate, opened presents, and watched a movie. The time flew by. Pretty soon it was time for Emma to go to bed so Santa could come. Santa, I heard, was very well organized and prepared this year (he usually is). So there was not much to do except to set everything up. Santa, having once been a visual merchandiser, is a creative sort of fellow around our neck of the woods. He loves setting up wonderful toy displays. He wants everything to look extra magical and was raised in a household were Christmas gifts were not wrapped. He really enjoyed that and has thus carried on the tradition for the Patterson family.

He went a bit overboard this year and fulfilled requests from Emma’s grandpa and great grandma to put something under the tree for her since they could not visit. This is also the year that maybe “Santa” went overboard because he was really hoping to have two kids to receive presents but instead probably over spoiled the one child.

Emma didn’t mind though. She got her guitar and her dinosaurs which is all that mattered. A sled and a horsie to ride were bonuses and you can never have too many books!  I also have it on good authority that Santa hand made the star stage for Emma using cardboard and wrapping paper. Oh that crafty old Saint Nick!

We completed the holiday with a stop to Nana’s house Christmas night and another stop to Mimi’s house that Sunday. I had pretty much stopped taking pictures at that point and eating cookies too for that matter. The truth is, even with Emma being cranky at the end of every day without napping, and me being bombarded with demanding toddler requests for a week, I found myself on Sunday night feeling very sad to be going back to work on Monday. I sometimes think Emma and I both get a little tired of being together for long stretches of time but Emma made it clear to me that she would rather hang out with me every day then go back to school, which stung…a lot. I haven’t felt working mom guilt in a long time and man did that hit me in the feels. I think next year if I can, I will take off an extra couple of days around holiday time. I’m also not sure if I will schedule as many activities next year but I think we all experienced enough to make lasting holiday memories together as a family.

PS. Below are toliet paper roll carolers Emma made for us as a Christmas present at school. I have never cried over small cardboard tubes so much. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Happy Holidays Part I

As much as I would like to write an epically thoughtful, enlightening, or ridiculously humorous post, I find myself void of the energy to do so. Mainly because it’s holiday time which means I have been running around pretending I’m super woman trying to get it all done (not to mention I’ve been fighting a whisper of a cold for over two weeks now. You know the cold...the one that’s not enough to completely knock you out but strong enough to make it hard to focus and keep your eyes open, yeah that one ). Nevertheless, I have taken the ambitious route this year not only volunteering to bake cookies for my husband’s entire work team but also committing to Emma’s school holiday party, and sending out Christmas cards on top of accepting every single invitation to every event we’ve received for the month of December. Pretty much every holiday tradition/ cliché we are participating in this year which should in no way set unrealistic expectations for future holiday seasons to come.

The list of events, in case you were wondering includes: one ugly sweater party, one cookie baking session with Nana, several ornament decorating crafts, keeping up with an advent calendar, a trip to view a Christmas light show, 3 Christmas parties, Christmas card photo shoot, brunch with Santa, black Friday shopping (sort of), a Christmas Pageant, and a non-holiday (but still totally awesome) 4 year old birthday party. Not to mention we are hosting Christmas Eve at our house this year. Sadly, my Mother-in-Law has to work and will not be able to host. I will miss seeing my mother-in-law dearly and miss her cooking especially, not to mention her uncanny knack for entertaining the children. I’m just hoping I can keep the kids feed and entertained for several hours and not be too exhausted for “the big night” if you know what I mean. I don’t want anyone to take this as complaining because trust me, it’s not. It may be overwhelming BUT I think I over scheduled us this year because I am so happy. I am so grateful we made it through this year happy and healthy. We are very fortunate to be able to enjoy this special time of year together and so we are REALLY doing it up!

Note my popsicle stick Pintrest fail Santa bottom left...

One secret to my sanity this year is that I did all of my holiday shopping online on Black Friday. It was weird and wonderful. Weird because I’m used to running around the mall with my Aunt and sister and wonderful because this year I found myself sitting on a comfy leather bench, in the mall, shopping on my phone while I waited for my sister and Aunt to get out of the lines at the stores and meet up for lunch. I kid you not, I went to a mall to shop on my phone...it was so stress free. I did go into a few stores and looked around but I guess I was just not feeling it. It was a little nerve wracking waiting for all of the stuff to come in the mail but come it did and in separate shipments which also made it easier to wrap everything. I ended up wrapping  whatever came in little by little each night instead of torturing myself with what I do every year, which is wait until a few days before Christmas, freak-out, then spend hours in a single night drinking gallons of coffee and glancing longingly at my husband for help wrapping a million things.

Emma..

This year, Emma has been really wrapped up in the idea of Christmas. She goes to a religious based pre-school so she hears a lot about Christmas all day in fact, next week is her first Christmas Pageant and I CAN NOT WAIT to witness the cuteness!! So far she loves playing with the Nativity set (she has her own little people set) but she ALSO loves the gorgeous, EXPENSIVE, Italian made set my mother-in-law gifted us several years back. A few of the pieces look “well loved” or perhaps a little more “vintage” due to being handled by a three year old but I really do want her to enjoy the set (plus I have no where high up I can keep it out of reach…er…display it). She keeps asking me if it’s “Christmas time” and I tell her yes it is! Then she immediately follows up with, “ok, but is it Christmas Day?” And I have to try to explain the simple concept of a “time of year” verses a singular day which has been interesting. She thought that the day we put up the tree was Christmas day which makes sense but we have been going through the advent calendar so she can understand the concept of waiting an entire month for one day.

Emma made it through seeing Santa this year although I thought she was going to meltdown in line. Walking up to Santa, she clung to me for dear life and then I think Santa thought he was being helpful/ welcoming by giving a jolly old ho, ho, ho! which only distressed Emma even more. He finally reached out his hand and she took it! A Christmas miracle! I sat her on his lap and asked her if I could go stand off to the side. She said yes! So we finally got the shot I’ve been waiting 3 years for! Afterward, hubs walked over and made sure Emma told Santa what she wanted. We made sure to explain once she told Santa himself what she wanted there was NO going back. In the weeks leading up to Santa her requests have ranged from “presents” to “a horsie to ride” to a last minute game changer, a “dinosaur.” We can’t have her wake up Christmas morning sobbing because Santa didn’t bring the XYZ she wanted so after the requests were in, she knew she was done. I also wanted to mention that Emma did go with me to pick out several toys to donate to less fortunate families this year. I explained to her that not everyone has what we have and we needed to share. I’m not sure she fully understood but I was glad to introduce this concept and I’m hoping to expand on this in the coming years.

Recently, she is quick to point out any Christmas lights or big, blow-up lawn décor as we drive around. We walked around our neighborhood and one other neighborhood to check out the lights. It was really fun. What has made everything even MORE fun is the fact that our dear friend El Nino has brought spring like weather to the area. I seriously would never be out walking around in the cold looking at lights…EVER. I am loving this extra out door time we normally do not get!  It’s even making me think about relocating to a warmer climate again but that probably won’t happen until retirement if I’m lucky… Anyways, I am looking forward to the next set of holiday activities coming up this weekend and next week.

Thanks El Nino! 

Hopefully I will bring you happy holidays part II the week after next as well as my yearly wrap up here before the New Year. If somehow I get carried off by elves and don’t make it back until January…have a happy and healthy holiday season!