Christmas 2011

Christmas was a complete success!! We spent wonderful, quality time with our families and unwrapped a gazillion presents from all of our amazing family and friends.
It was Maggie's first Christmas where she was really understood unwrapping presents--at first she was pulling one piece at a time and putting it in the trash but by present-palooza 999, she had the process down pat. She loves her Cabbage Patch baby Ella, vanity, and the Barbie jeep. Her purse, books, and "wip-wip" (lipstick) are also favorites.

Ian was the most excited about Christmas and at 3am on Christmas morning, he was wide awake and ready to open Santa! He loved his Nintendo DS and his iPad. I mean really, what 8 year old kid wouldn't be thrilled by an iPad? Thanks Mom & Dad for spoiling him completely. Even I am thrilled about it, even if I have to ask permission to use it! He got a bike and cornhole boards, which I know he loves. He told me the best part of Christmas was just spending time with me. I love that kid.

  I felt like I spent most of the season convincing Will to believe in the Magic of Christmas. He only wanted to convince me that Jesus loved him regardless of what Santa thought and that Elfie wasn't as magical as I claimed he was. He even went as far as to tell us Christmas Eve that Santa wasn't real at all. I think he changed his mind on Christmas morning because Santa got him everything on his list, but this is Will, so I really have no idea.  He tells me he is most thrilled by his BB gun (maybe he won't shoot his eye out?) and his Scooter. But he loves his bike, the iPad (which was a joint gift for he and Ian), and his Nerf Oozie.

My favorite gift of the year? My rockin' new cowboy boots from my in laws! Love, love, love them! Josh and I don't exchange gifts for Christmas. After all, we have each other's love ;)But he did buy me a purple Snuggie for my birthday and I love it almost as much as my boots!

The gift that out gave all? Our decision to adopt a family for Christmas. We have always helped out with Operation Christmas Child, helped with Angel Tree, given to the Salvation Army, but we have never taken on the task of helping to provide Christmas for an entire family. And compared to other years, this was the year that we didn't have the money to do it.  However, Josh knows the father of this family and he came home a couple of weeks before Christmas convinced that we needed to find a way to help this family.Deciding to do something like this is very typical of me. But Josh? It's not that he isn't charitable. It's just that he doesn't usually volunteer us for ANY kind of project. But I could tell that this family and their circumstances were truly convicting him to do something. So we did. It wasn't fancy and it wasn't anything to brag about, but we did it. We got the kids involved and they were so excited to pick out toys for this family of 6 children. Our decision do to this is also why none of you received Christmas cards from us this year...so we weren't being rude, we were just using that money to pay forward all of the great kindness that we have received this year.

I know our small contribution to this family helped make their Holiday brighter, but for us, it made it radiate far brighter than I could have imagined. When I was wrapping the presents for the family, Will came to me with his most favorite Buzz Lightyear and said, "Mom, you know I love this Buzz, but I would love him even more if he could go to one of the boys in that family." Of course, we weren't asking him to sacrifice his own stuff but the gesture was almost more than my heart could handle. So even if Will wasn't keen on Santa or understand the magic that comes with Christmas, I know that his heart understands the importance of giving, even when we think that we don't have the resources to give. He understands sharing our joy with others. Even at 3, he understood that Jesus' love for us is more important than anything else. And despite all of his misgivings about the magic of Christmas, he ended the year knowing the true meaning of Christmas!