Christmas Is The Time of Year.....

Christmas is definitely the time of year for being with the ones you love and enjoying life. It is also the busiest time of year because the kids are out of school, presents must be bought and wrapped, SPROUT is busier than ever. It is a lot to juggle. Because we travel home for Christmas, we have our family Christmas here on Folly a little early. Santa comes, brings the kids presents, and we wake up and it is Christmas morning at our house. So the rush is a little sooner to get all of our shopping done. Once that is done we travel to Conway where we spend Christmas Eve with my parents and Christmas day with Brett's parents. This year, due to my camera being dropped by a certain 3 year old, I did not take any pictures of our family Christmas. Instead I had to rely on the kindness of others with their cameras. And by that I mean my mom. So I have some photographs of Christmas Eve to share.

But before I share those, I want to say that not only was I busy and not able to blog as usual, but I was also procrastinating. Because just like Christmas can be somewhat overwhelming in that positive eustress sort-of way, so can trying to summarize such a holiday in a short blog. As I was thinking about this post tonight, I realized it is not so important to point out every detail of our Christmas but to point out what makes our holiday special and the things I appreciate most. So here are the things I love and look forward to every Christmas.

1. The red pajamas that the kids and Brett and I wear on our Christmas Eve that have our names printed across the bottom.

2. Fireworks at my mom and dads house on Christmas Eve.

3. Mom's baked goodies and her decorations.

4. Visiting my Granny and my aunts, uncles, and cousins.

5. Seeing Chapel and Eli and Conor and Jude play with all of their cousins.

6. The present opening mayhem at the Barkers on Christmas morning.

7. The Barkers being really loud and funny.

8. MaMa Anne tending to the babies so I can sleep in!

And finally, this was the first Christmas my sister and I have spent apart. It definitely felt like something was different, but I have her visit in February to look forward to, and knowing we will see her soon makes it much easier.