Mixed Bag Of Rant

I was woken up yesterday by the pitter patter of little feet and an excited little voice, “Hey guys, my bunny is awake. It’s time to get up! It’s Christmas!” It’s hard not to get caught up in his excitement. Tired, I stumbled downstairs to get some breakfast ready for the kid and feed the dog.

We had planned on having our own family Christmas on Christmas Eve morning, before the festivities with my parents in the afternoon. Just us. Our little team. As we sat down to open our gifts for each other, I opened the blinds and as if it was ordered up for me, it was snowing the most perfect, light amazing snowfall. With every present my son opened, they were all (even his new bed sheets) welcomed with, “This is awesome!” and “WOW!” After all the presents were opened, my husband and I exchanged a hug, kiss and Merry Christmas and as I turned, Jack ran up to hug me, jumping up into a full arms and legs bear hug. He kissed me on the cheek, looked me in the eyes and said, “Merry Christmas, Mommy.”

When you are infertile, it is moments like those that you can only dream about. Moments like those that make every ounce of struggle and fight to bring them into this world worth everything.

Overall, I have had a very enlightening holiday season. I discovered things about myself that have really helped to bring everything full circle. I didn’t give myself enough credit for my weight loss. I took a lot of things for granted. I was so inside myself that I didn’t realize how many people I was pushing away- including my husband. This clarity? It has utterly changed my life. I am so overflowing with love and happiness that I wish I could bottle it up and gift it to others.

My Christmas was about as close to perfect as it could get. A kid whose child-like wonder is contagious. Seeing him perform in his first Christmas program a week ago was a moment I do not ever want to forget. A moment I waited and wanted ever since I knew I wanted to be a mom.

Singing with my best friend, regardless of my lingering pneumonia and tempo mis-cue on this song, still so much fun. So grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to do one of the things I love the most.

If there is one thing that has become the most clear to me over the last month, it is that being happy, positive and enjoying life is much more fun. Life is entirely way too short to spend time being unhappy or trying to solve things that are beyond our control.

I am beyond grateful for everything that I have. The life that I live. The incredible people I am surrounded by. The special people who inspire me every single day. They are always in my thoughts and hold the most important pieces of my heart.

I cannot think of any better song to sum up how filled with joy I am this Christmas- Unspeakable Joy
 My cup runneth over.

For years, I despised the coming of the holidays. The family tug-of-war. Where do we go? How many turkey dinners is it possible to have in a single day? Then the baby came along and that actually made the struggle worse as everyone wanted to see him. We tried a joint family holiday (yikes). Not knowing what to buy for presents for family. Not knowing if I should buy presents for co-workers. Shopping for the presents with ten gazillion other people. Procrastinating on the outdoor decorations until there is a blizzard blowing outside (true story). Weight gain. Gah.

I could go on. But…

So Proud Of His Tree

Something magical happened this holiday season. My child is old enough to get caught up on the spirit and I have to say, it is contagious. He loves all of the lights. He loves hearing about Santa (he asked if he could give Santa 3 choices this year). He was excited to learn Christmas songs. He keeps asking when his elf Ernie will show up (we are holding out on Ernie as long as possible… that is another whole blog post though). He helped me decorate the tree and is so proud of his work. How could you not be happy being around him?

This is also his first year of Sunday School and I am so happy that he is enjoying it! Every Sunday after the hubs and I pick up Jack from class we “recap” about what he learned in Sunday School. I just love that he’s learning about the true meaning of Christmas and having it be about more than just presents and Santa. He will be singing in his first ever Christmas program and my family (you know… the same ones that were stressing me out every year?), they will be there in full to support him and I LOVE it!

I will also be singing for Christmas with my best friend this year. I love singing with her on the holidays because it is a reminder of how long we have been friends, of everything we have been through together over the last 15 years, how our love for music always bring us together and especially it is a reminder of how much I truly love Christmas.

Here is a little snippet of my BFF and I singing together this past Easter (shameless plug… she has a Christmas Album that she recorded and I’ll be pimping it out for her next week):

So, forget about the stress. Forget about the stuff that needs to get done. Forget about yourself.

Look for the beauty in the holiday season!

Go ahead haters, say what you want about this suddenly over-commercialized “tradition” but, I confess, I am totally in love with The Elf on the Shelf.

Jackson received his Elf from his Godparents post-Christmas last year and at the age of 2 could have cared less about it. I had heard of The Elf on the Shelf and thought it was a super cute idea- I was excited to figure out what he was all about. Noticing all the Elf hype this year, I told my husband that I wanted to get one for Jack. Oh yes, apparently I had forgotten we got one as a gift. So, we pulled our Elf out from the depths of Christmas storage and introduced him to Jackson who was immediately mystified by him. We asked him to give the Elf a name to which he initially replied, “Let’s call him Reindeer.” We then encouraged him to think of a few more (with a few suggestions from Mom & Dad) and he decided Ernie was the perfect name for his Elf. We went to www.elfontheshelf.com where we officially “adopted” Ernie. Jack was over the moon getting a letter back from Santa- he even wanted to bring it with him to school to show his teacher. He seriously carries this letter with him everywhere.

I know some longtime Elf on the Shelf people are not happy that the tradition has been commercially over-blown. My husband HATED the CBS special that aired- he called it total propaganda. While I agree with him that the show was obviously catered to selling more of the Elf, Jackson LOVED it. He loved the music, he loved Santa, he loved everything about it AND he learned what HIS Elf was all about. While he hasn’t put two and two together that Ernie will report his naughty behavior to Santa and he won’t get a gift, he still thinks Ernie is magical and funny. He freaked out when he thought his daddy was trying to touch Ernie and quickly explained to us in only the way that a 3 year old does that if we touch him, his magical powers will go away. He gets it and it is adorable. Am I scarring him for life for making him think there is a magical tattle tale Elf living in our house? I don’t think so. Shit. I believed in Santa for I don’t even know how long as a kid and guess what… I don’t harbor any ill will towards my parents or require any therapy for their living such a lie.

My husband and I are having fun with finding different places to put Ernie and it has become a game for us to find fun and hilarious things to do with him. Sure, Ernie had a little bit of a creeper look when he was humping the angel on the top of our tree (yes, we told the child he was… giving her a hug), but overall I find our little Elf hilarious. This Elf isn’t unlike the creepy fake HAND that my husband has been moving around with him for the last 20 years that shows up in all kinds of awful places to scare both me and our child, not to mention may or may not have groped a number of stuffed animals in our household. It doesn’t take an obscene amount of time (2 minutes max.) to find a hiding place for Ernie, nor are we going to run out of ideas anytime soon NOR do we care if we have to reuse the same ideas.

Our famous creepy fake hand.

I love this new tradition. I love that Jackson is getting caught up in the magic of Christmas and that he so passionately believes in his Elf. Every day, my usually cranky preschooler wakes up excited to run out and find where Ernie is hiding. Our silly little Elf has brought magic and excitement to our house which had been seriously lacking Christmas spirit this holiday season and for that, I am grateful.

So, my dear Elf haters, I’m sorry that you weren’t able to make the Elf work for your family. I truly hope that you are finding other ways to add magic into the holiday season.