This Christmas: The Failure and the Hope

This Christmas:

I haven’t Elf-ed on the Shelf-ed

I haven’t done one Advent activity

I have talked to Ty about Santa every day

I haven’t mentioned Jesus once

I haven’t made the cutest Christmas card ever and mailed it to friends and family near and far

But:

 


I decorated the tree with Ty.  Sure, we only used unbreakable ornaments made from yarn and all the beautiful baubles were left in their boxes safe in the closet, but every day when I plug in the lights Ty falls in love.  To him, the tree is beautiful.

 

We saw a Christmas boat parade. Sure, there was only one boat in the entire parade because of the yucky weather, but it was covered in lights.  It even had a Rudolph on the bow.  The people on the boat shouted, “Ho, Ho, Ho” and waved to Ty and Emily Grace. But the real show was before the parade when we watched a dolphin swim and play right off the end of the dock.

Advent isn’t over. I’m going to do some more research about Advent activities for children.  I figure this year is a free year because my children are so young.  I’ll be ready next year.




I decided not to do a card. I don’t have my usual stack of half addressed, half stamped Christmas cards on the table and I don’t have a stack of guilt about the cards that will unfortunately never be mailed.  I was planning on doing a card.  I really enjoy making them.  I love looking for the right pictures and playing with the layouts, but I hate mailing them.  I realized the cards were not blessing me because they weren’t getting mailed out and they weren’t blessing anyone else for the same reason. So NO CHRISTMAS CARD!


 




I don’t really like Elf on the Shelf anyways.  I don’t think he’ll ever be a part of our Christmas.  (Come on, I haven’t even been able to get a good dose of Jesus in there yet.  Adding that elfie little creeper to our holiday is not even making the to-do list.)

 



Christmas is about The Baby.  Last night Ty laid in our bed for a little while and I started telling him the story about when he was born.  He was so captivated, I told him Emily Grace’s birth story.  Then my own birth story.  He asked to hear PaPa’s birth story (which I mostly made up, but he is a twin, so that added a nice little twist.) This morning I realized he would probably love to hear the greatest birth story in all of history: the birth of the Savior.

Is it a perfect Pinterest Christmas?

No!

 But it is a perfect Unger Christmas.