This Year Was Just A Little Different….

I enjoy Christmas. I’m not Ms. Claus but I’m not the Grinch. I’m somewhere in the middle. I think as I get older the expectations I set for myself get lower. The truth is I refuse to overthink and overextend myself. I don’t count the kids presents to make sure they are fair. They don’t get exactly the same amount spent. I refuse to put that kind of pressure on myself. Apparently this year I opened that pressure valve right up and didn’t realize until Christmas morning that I had no gifts for my husband.

We got a blizzard 2 days before Christmas which changed our usual plans. It has always been a tradition in our house that on Christmas Eve we open our matching pajamas and the kids open their sibling gifts. Then we eat snacks and watch a movie. The kids all go to bed and we all get up together. Even though Morgan is going to be 24 she has always slept at home on Christmas Eve. Until this year. It was a good run. She got here before I woke up on Christmas morning. That was a nice surprise.

My kids are all getting older. We used to wait until Christmas Eve after the kids went to bed to put out the presents. Not this year. As soon as I wrapped them they went under the tree. I will say it was much easier but I feel like a little bit of that Christmas morning magic was gone. They woke up to the same tree and presents that they’ve been looking at for a month.

Addie is always Santa. Maybe it’s a baby of the family thing but has just always been that way. She was passing out the gifts and I didn’t realize until she was done that Chuck had none. No presents to open. Who in the hell let that happen? It’s me, I did apparently. Talk about feeling like a complete jackass. To be fair I did order him a gift that didn’t come in time and then there was the blizzard.

I found myself having to make excuses to my overly judge mental kids. Then I realized that 2 out of 3 of them have jobs and could have gotten their dad something too. I’m also terrible at holding gifts so he got a couple of things the Thursday before Christmas because I was too excited to wait. None the less he opened one gift one Christmas and that was a set of sheets. Next year I’ll do better.

Christmas dinner was prime rib. We’ve been looking forward to that for a week. We decided that we’d eat around 2. At noon we finally read the directions on the fully cooked prime rib from Gordon Foods. Apparently it takes 3.5 hours to warm a fully cooked prime rib. At this point what can you do but laugh? We set my mom up on the couch with a blanket and a Hallmark movie. I attempted to take a nap but ended up laying in bed next to Morgan laughing and watching TikTok’s.

There was no high or low about this Christmas. It was a very lazy, laid back day. I didn’t take one picture on Christmas day. I served dinner on paper plates. Maybe next year I’ll get my shit together. Then again maybe not.