Well, another Christmas has come and gone, and for the 20th year in a row I was unanimously voted “Christmas MVP” by my family. I really go all out, and would do it even if no one else acknowledged it, because I love Christmas so much. But it’s nice, as the kids get older, to hear them express their appreciation.
My husband is always appreciative of the fact that I handle almost every aspect of Christmas by myself- all the decorating (including outside lights,) baking, present buying (other than the presents he gives me, of course) present wrapping, and everything else that goes along with being “Santa.” I realized years ago that Christmas just isn’t that important to my husband. He thinks it’s a nice holiday, like Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day and the 4th of July, but doesn’t see it as super-special. If I want the holiday to be special I have to do it myself.
The other thing that has to be mentioned is that my husband works a LOT in December. He’s a trumpet player and plays a lot of gigs this time of year, including a midnight mass on Christmas Eve. The money he brings in makes all the other things possible- so he definitely does his part behind the scenes.
Let’s start with Christmas Eve! We always host a cookie decorating party. The cookies came out… interesting, as usual. Here’s a plate we put together for our neighbor with some of the nicer ones:
And here’s a couple OTHER ones.
After cookies we ate dinner, took a walk and then our friends left. There was something new this year- my son played the Christmas Eve service with my husband! After they left, my daughter and I cleaned the living room and moved all the presents that were under the tree to the couch, to make room for the Santa presents. (Important side note: my kids obviously do not believe in Santa anymore. But they still appreciate that magical feeling of waking up on Christmas morning and being surprised by the presents under the tree, so I’ll keep it going as long as they want… probably until they have kids of their own!)
Christmas Day… Santa came!
We all opened presents…
Here’s my haul:
And here’s the Book Flood (combination of books we all got.)
Funny story… originally my husband and I both got each other the David Goggins book. My son realized this and told my husband, so he returned mine and got the Lucy Foley book instead. Good call- we don’t need two copies.
Our traditional Christmas breakfast is cinnamon rolls, which I failed to photograph. My family enjoyed them while I had gingerbread oatmeal (yum.) In the afternoon we had a charcuterie board with our fancy-schmancy vegan cheese which was ordered from Rebel Cheese in Austin, Texas.
Christmas afternoon was very, very lazy. The only thing that marred it was that the Dolphins lost… but we had to let that go. Christmas dinner is always lasagna.
After dinner my post-Christmas sadness threatened to overwhelm me, but I kept myself busy cleaning. I reminded myself that it’s still the holiday season, and in fact the “Twelve Days of Christmas” BEGIN on December 25th and go until January 6th, Epiphany. Let the festivities continue!
At the beginning of the season, I vowed this would be “The Best Christmas Ever.” So… was it? Well, unlike last Christmas, no one got Covid, so that was pretty awesome. And we had a VERY unusual cold front, which made it extra exciting. So yes! It was the best ever… until next year.
How was your Christmas?
Is Christmas a big deal to you, or is it just like any other holiday?
If you don’t celebrate Christmas, what do you do on Christmas Day? – A lot of people here go to the beach on Christmas- but not this year! It was in the 40s and rainy.
26 Responses
You definitely had a great Christmas and got some perfect gifts… you know that shirt is perfect for me LOL.
Enjoy the holidays because they don’t last at least with me they didn’t… but my kids and hubby were not that excited about it… I did everything… decorating, baking, gifts etc. It was exhausting but lovely at the same time.
We just went out the two of us for Chinese and then visited my MIL. My new cat is a terror so I skipped the decorating… maybe the spirit will return if I have grandkids.
Yes, I think Christmas will change once again when you have grandkids! Meanwhile you have your kitten… I like how he made an appearance in your ‘Year in Photos” post.
We have the same dynamic in my household – I am the magic maker. My husband is not super into holidays in general. He likes to tell people that he stays in the meaty part of the bell curve of emotions in general. So he doesn’t get really excited, nor does he generally get really upset or mad, if that makes sense? So he’s never going to be THRILLED about a holiday. I actually very similar in terms of disposition, but I really love the holidays so very much. So I want my kids to experience the kind of magic I had as a child. I mean, Phil has a great Christmas memories, too, but it doesn’t motivate him to want to go out shopping or wrap the presents. 😉 But we are pretty low key in terms of gifts and such. We can be since our kids get so much from extended family so they do not want for toys at this time of year!
We had a really nice Christmas, too. We were with extended family on Christmas Eve which was definitely the highlight for us and the kids. This party is so much fun! We got to Phil’s cousin’s house. He is quite a bit younger, all his cousin’s kids are in college or older. So our kids are a total novelty and get so much attention and love – and presents. But it’s just the most joyful, fun celebration. Christmas Day was quiet for us and there was much refereeing of fights over toys because Will does NOT understand how to share yet. Paul was a trooper, though. And he was SO excited about his presents. His favorite gifts were 2 transformers and a lego set. I have the cutest picture of him putting his hands up in the air in excitement when he opened it! But wow he has a lot of questions about Santa already. He was grilling us on the drive home on Christmas Eve. I think he’s going to be a questioner like daddy!
I am glad that this was a wonderful Christmas for you! You needed a great holiday after how awful last year was with covid! We were hoping for a Dolphins win since we hate the Packers so that was a bummer! But we were thrilled with our Vikings win on Christmas Eve!
Yes, the Vikings had an exciting win!
Your Christmas Eve sounds so nice!!! I want to see the picture of Paul being excited about his presents. My Paul got a Lego too (at the age of 20- he still loves them.) Oh, and any tricky Santa questions can be answered with “I guess it’s magic.”
What? You have Christmas-themed charcuterie knives? Haha! You definitely go all out, Jenny!
You got some nice presents – did you get to choose the hydrovest or did your husband just take a guess?
“Atomic Habits” is awesome, I find that it’s a book that needs to be re-read every year. Actually, thanks for the idea, that’s what I’m going to do in January!
Ha, I put the hydrovest on an Amazon wish list- just to make things easy for my husband.
Of course I have Christmas-themed charcuterie knives- doesn’t everyone?
Those are some lovely Christmas gifts, especially the t-shirt and the books! I’m waiting for that David Goggins book to show up at Apple Books, and I also have the Atomic habits one and will start reading it during January.
You truly work hard to make Christmas special, I get exhausted by just reading about it! I used to be all in with Christmas but I don’t care so much about it anymore. It’s nice of course but not as important to me as it used to be. My nursing job ruined it for me, and now Covid ruins it for me (because Christmas happens during the high risk season). But I enjoy the period leading up to Christmas and I do my baking and decorating and we make some Swedish Christmas food.
Well, I think Christmas expectations can evolve. At some point when the kids have families of their own I’m sure my Christmas will look quite different.
Atomic Habits was actually a book my son requested- I guess I better read it before he leaves with it!
We had a nice Christmas, though it was marred with some more illness-related activities (sigh!), so I’m still in a bit of a haze. BUT, we were together and there was delicious food and a lot of very special memories.
Christmas Eve, Eve this year was my favourite day of 2022, so that was lovely (I’ll recap on my blog when I finally get my head back on straight!). Was it my favourite adult Christmas ever? Not quite – that honour goes to December 2020, oddly enough, which was practically perfect in every way. But I have to let go of striving for the “best” Christmas every year and just let it be and, in totality, this year’s celebrations were lovely.
Like you I find it all a bit depressing by lunchtime on Christmas Day. But the tree is still up and beautiful and I’m embracing the festive cheer (while silently missing the fun of anticipation)! I find by the second week of January I slip out of my post-Christmas funk, but I’ve come to expect it.
I love your gifts and lasagne on Christmas Day sounds DELICIOUS!!!
I’m looking forward to your recap! You described my mood perfectly- the tree is still up and it still feels festive- minus the fun of anticipation. And the second week of January sounds about right- it takes about that long to get over the post-holiday sadness.
This sounds so wonderful! I love your gifts — such a fun variety of items. The running or thinking about it shirt is awesome!
Christmas is definitely a bigger deal to me than to my husband, but he humors me. Although now I am READY to clean everything up and put all the decorations away! I don’t think my family is ready though (and I’m not so eager to do it that I want to attempt it myself!) so we will leave things up a few more days.
Oh, I definitely wish a magic fairy would come and put everything away for me! I definitely do NOT like that part of the holiday.
I was recently reading an article about the gendered nature of making holidays cheerful and festive. My husband helps with things like putting up lights and decorating the tree, but shopping, cooking, sending cards, and planning holiday excursions all fall to me. If I did as much or as little as he did, our celebrations would be much more muted. I don’t mind because I like to do cards and bake cookies, but if I didn’t enjoy it or just stopped doing it altogether, I wonder what the holidays would look like in our house. I also wonder how much stress/resentment some people feel, like the magic of Christmas really relies on them, but they aren’t recognized for it. It doesn’t sound like it in your situation, but I just sort of wonder on a larger scale how much an unfair division of labor, both physical and emotional, contributes to the unhappiness some people feel during the holidays.
I’m so happy you had a lovely day, though! Yay for getting presents that you love! Yay for spending time with your family!
That sounds like a really interesting article. It does seem like most of the tasks falls to the women- I would say in our house it’s even more extreme than most. But, luckily I enjoy it. Good question- what if I didn’t? How stressful would the holiday be then? I want to read that article!
I didn’t mean to leave you hanging!
https://daily.jstor.org/the-gendering-of-holiday-labor/
It sounds like you had a fabulous Christmas! I love Christmas as much as you do and do the majority of everything myself as well. My husband was sick last week with Saturday being his worst day so we had to call off all family and friends events. Unfortunately, I started getting sick Christmas afternoon and night (headache, sore throat, and body aches) so we lounged around watching Christmas movies. Surprisingly, I was okay with it and didn’t get sad or bummed to have to switch things up.
I’m finally feeling mostly better so the family is coming over tomorrow afternoon to celebrate and open gifts!
I love that your big kids still want Santa gifts— I hope mine do, too. And you are a million percent right about smaller and more expensive!!
Yes, I think my kids will want Santa gifts forever. At least until they have kids of their own.
My oldest stepson’s review of Christmas with his mom, Christmas with us, and the big family Christmas party: “this was the most consistently good Christmas ever” That says it all – it was a good one!
That’s a nice haul for gifts! I’m glad that Santa was good to everyone.
Oh, that is a good compliment- considering how many variables there were. I’m glad it was a good one!
I’m very lucky in that my husband is SUPER into Christmas. His friends tell him “you are more into Christmas than any adult we know”.
This is what this means – so, we always decorate the Friday after Thanksgiving. So I went out on a nice long morning run that Friday morning, came back, and he’s already put up half the decorations! It was so festive and nice coming home to an already-half decorated house.
you have the ideal husband!!!! That sounds so fun. I’m envious- but I accept my role as “sole Christmas-er” of the household, sigh.
My mom was definitely the magic maker in our family growing up. What’s funny is that now, my brother is the magic maker! My SIL likes the holiday but it’s my brother who does all of the decorating (inside and outside), makes his kids watch all the Christmas movies, and buys most of the presents. He just loves the holiday so much, and I think that’s because my mom made it so special for us.
I think it would be hard to be with someone who didn’t love Christmas as much as I did. Resentment is something I struggle with, so I worry I would spend most of December annoyed/resentful of all the work I was doing. But maybe not! I guess we’ll see if that time ever comes for me, haha.
That’s funny your brother is the Christmas MVP because I’m really starting to see that it’s usually the women who do it all. I hope you get together with someone who loves Christmas- but if not, maybe it will be your job to show them how fun it can be.
I love that you embrace Christmas and that you don’t seem to mind that you have to do all of the organizational parts of the holidays (it’s part of the fun, amirite?). Your tree is beautiful and I am so glad you had a great Christmas!
Is your tree still up?? 😉
The tree came down early this year, on December 30th. We usually leave it up till after New Year’s, but I had a sudden burst of energy and decided to take it down. Plus it was old and brittle and dropping needles EVERYWHERE.