A week from today will be Christmas Day. We are so excited! The kids are pretty wound up about it. You would think they would be acting like perfect angels since Santa is coming in just a few days - but not so much. They try though. They get an A for effort....okay, sometimes a B or a C but mostly an A.
The shopping is done, the presents are wrapped. The stocking stuffers are stashed away. Now we can enjoy the good stuff. I know a lot of people dread Christmas. The hustle and bustle, the crowded malls, the inevitable weight gain. I try not to participate in those aspects of Christmas and focus on the good stuff.
We have not always had the funds for a ton of gifts. For my oldest daughters 1st Christmas we literally only has $15 to spend on Christmas. My husband and I dubbed that our "Dollar Store Christmas". We got $5 to spend at the dollar store. For my daughter she got a rattle and a stuffed bear. We had a riot opening gifts. "Honey - I love this spatula you got me." I got him a pair of black socks and car cleaning stuff. We decorated our pipe cleaner Christmas tree we had purchased from Family Dollar 2 years prior and we baked cookies. It was actually a wonderful Christmas, one of my favorites.
We limit the gifts for the children still. Every year they buy a gift for each other and a gift for mom and dad. They get 4 presents on Christmas morning- one is usually from my husband and I and the rest from Santa. The get something they want, something they need, something to play with and something to read. This year they both need pajamas and will get a new pair. My oldest will get the new Dork Diary book and my youngest will get Where the Sidewalk Ends. My oldest will get a science kit with a microscope to play with and my youngest a telescope. She told me she wants to "look at the constellations." In the summer she would make us all look at the stars. We would spread out a comforter on the driveway and the 4 of us would gaze at the stars and look for the North Star and little and big dipper. I'm sure the neighbors thought we were insane but we made some great memories! The thing that they want - now that is a big gift this year. For years they have been asking us to go to Disney World. It is a very expensive vacation and we are very busy with work and the kids with school and it never seemed to be the right time.
Last January they asked again about Disney World and it occurred to me that this is the perfect time. I always knew that if we were going to do Disney -we were going to do it big. I wanted to stay on the resort and go for 5 days and have sit down meals and not have to worry about packing snacks and just be able to have fun with the kids. We would not go into debt to do Disney- it needed to be paid for before we went. I just wanted to go and enjoy it. We booked the trip in February. The cool thing about Disney is that when you book with them you can essentially put it on Layaway. You do a deposit and then you have a certain amount of time to pay it off. We are so excited about it!
The children don't know we are going. For their 4th gift, I purchased suitcases with their names embroidered on them. We hid clues inside that they will have to unwrap. We'll say, "Surprise! We are leaving for Disney World tomorrow!" They have no clue. We have been planning activities to do over Christmas break because they think I am taking off work to putz around the house with them. They are really going to be over the moon. It has been a hard, long year - I have been away from them far more than I would have liked. We all deserve a little vacation.
The presents will be nice to have and the kids will be overjoyed to go to Disney - but the biggest and most favorite part of the day will be the time spent with family.
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