My Favorite Day

I have always had a hard time with favorites.  I have wavered on my favorite color, favorite movie, and favorite song.  I don't think I've ever been able to pick one favorite artist, or one favorite TV show.  So I know, in all fairness, that I shouldn't be calling any day my favorite.  There will be better days I am sure, and certainly there have been phenomenal days before, but last week, there was a day when I was getting ready for bed, and I thought to myself "this is one of my favorite days ever" and I want to tell you why.

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend last weekend. Not this most recent weekend, where I had a reaction to the pneumonia shot and then we had to get ready for an open house, but the one before that which was a big Christmas weekend.  I love Christmas.  I have always loved Christmas, particularly because I love winter.  So all the winter traditions, decorating the house, cutting down the tree, have become a big deal to me.  I have been bummed the past few years that we don't really have any room for decorations.  It is hard to decorate over the clutter.  But I had been bugging Andy for weeks about getting our decorations out and getting a plan for going to get the tree.  The Friday night that we were supposed to go get our tree (I assumed just buying it at the market we go to), Andy was late getting home, and had apparently forgotten that we were planning to go that night.  I was positively furious.  As it turns out, going somewhere the next day, going out to breakfast and then driving out to a farm to cut it down?  Much better plan.

It was a cold day, really cold, but bright and ridiculously sunny.  The kids loved running around in the trees, and we found a beautiful tree.  These photos don't need captions :-)

But that wasn't my favorite day.  The next day, Sunday, we had plans to take our kids to see Santa Claus at the local garden center where we had gone the year before.  Very nice Santa.  Very nice photographer who took almost 64 pictures of my kids.  I took a few myself, like the one below (check out the pouty lip on Ben, priceless).  We let the kids run around, tried to get some cute pictures of them in their Christmas outfits, and decided we really didn't need to buy any packaged prints.

Oh, until we saw them.  The photographer got good individual shots of each of them, the girls together, and all three of them.  Plus, he captured moments in between.  Well worth $25 even if I don't have any prints to show for it yet.

So Santa was a success.  We even managed to go out to lunch with my parents afterwards and no one did anything embarrassing.  They were well behaved, ate, and we came home for a nap.  Here are two random shots from dinner not related to my favorite day.  This is what happens when a toddler knows you want to take a picture of them.    

This is the picture she recommended Daddy should take instead.

After dinner, we knew we had to get the tree decorated.  Daddy had hauled it in, and strung up the lights, and the kids were ready to decorate.  After the craziness at my parents, I was expecting things to get dicey. Except really, they didn't.  I opened up the first box, and started distributing ornaments.  Without even realizing at first, I was telling them about the ornaments as I was giving them each one.  "Oh, be careful with this one, this is one Santa brought you on your first Christmas," "That one was Mommy's when she was little."  It got to where Ben would pull out a box and ask me what it was.  "That's my favorite Mommy, open it!"  Adorable.  I had no idea how many sentimental ornaments we had in our collection.  And no idea how much it would touch me to see my little people delicately handling them to put them on the tree, absorbing all the stories.  Next year, I wonder if they will remember some of them.  I tried to get some pictures, but it was too hard to unbox and hook, so I actually put down the camera for awhile and just enjoyed.

After the twins were in the bathtub, I had some funny playing with the baby and Christmas tree bokeh.

I also took pictures of some of our favorite ornaments, kinda specifically for this blog, lol.  Here is Ben's handprint snowman from last year.  Amazing how much bigger his hands looked wrapped around it this year.

The first Christmas for the twins was so special to both of our families, as they were the first grandchildren on either side.  On my side of the family they were also the first great grandchildren and my Gram was very excited to spoil them.  She doesn't get a lot of time to shop, but found these bear ornaments and some other knick knacks on a senior citizen bus trip.  They are not something Andy or I might have picked out, but because they came from her, they will always be treasured.

While I was taking pictures of the ornaments, Mia rolled over.  Apparently.  Still, no one has actually seen her accomplish this feat.  We see her roll up onto her side, from belly to back, but never back to belly.

I tried to get some cute bokeh pictures of the other two a couple nights ago.  Kind of different results.

So there you have my favorite day.  A successful trip to Santa, a nice lunch out, and putting up the Christmas tree while telling the kids all about our sentimental ornaments.  Every year, the ornaments that are special to me will grow.  We get an ornament every time we go on a trip, and the kids will get them in their stockings every year (Santa prefers Hallmark).  They will get them from grandparents, this year, Mia will get her own ornaments on the tree.  We will add the new, get rid of the old, the ones that are just fillers on the tree.  And someday, when they are grown, there will be the year that they get back their special ornaments to put on their own trees.  And I hope, starting with this year, they will remember the stories.   Christmas is a time of love.  Family.  Memories.  And this year, this is one of my favorite memories.  

Merry Christmas!