Was Christmas Everything You Wanted It to Be?

This was the best one for me in several years. Despite some awful things having happened this past year, my life is finally MY life, and is coming together the way I want it to.
I didn't decorate, but I was able to gift family and friends more generously than I have been able to in recent years.

It was a good Christmas, but somehow amiss. There are many changes taking place in our home. The 2 older ones, 23 & 22, are starting to separate themselves due to their lives blossoming. New significant others that added to their Christmas joy, the youngest, 15 is also blossoming, as she is my social butterfly and getting invited to various dinners with her BFF's. My MIL is older, more stubborn and set in her ways, making get togethers difficult. First year I must say, didn't fully feel like Christmas. I realized I have to be the one to plan Christmas better if I want it to be more festive. I plan to do so for next year.

yes, it was good. I find that I'm doing less & less in the decorating dept. We simply don't have time, & the chaos it creates is overwhelming (with having a daycare in the house).

Since I was out of commission for 6 weeks with a knee injury (& am still somewhat limited), my family really learned how they had to pitch in if they wanted anything to happen. In the past, I've relied upon delegation. This year....I threw it all in their hands. 90% of my shopping was online. 90% of the groceries/errands were handled by the 3 men. & somebody helped me with all food prep/clean up. We achieved a great holiday by working together, & I haven't used my walker in weeks. All good things.

& I want you to know...it's okay for just the kids to get Christmas gifts. Since 1993 (when our medical bill odyssey began) to this year....19 years in all.....my husband & I have had gifts just a handful of times. It was simply more important to provide for our sons/nieces/nephews than for ourselves. This year was the first time we gave to each other....in a long, long time. & that's okay.

Our finances were a little better at the end of this year, & I'm already planning for next year's giving to be one of ease. & that's all that matters: finding a way to make the bustling holiday season one of ease & comfort. Merry Christmas to you!

I felt like it was a laid back Christmas for us. Our daughter was a huge help and she is so funny. She decided that our house and yard needed help. So she directed us on how it needed to be lit up.. It has never looked better.

She picked out 3 new cookie recipes and has baked 2 recipes.

I decorate beautiful homes for the holidays, so after all of those trees, we decided, to not decorate a tree.... It was actually kind of nice to skip that part.

We visited family in very laid back ways.. no rushing around. Not a lot of gifts.

Only bad part from me, was my MIL.. She NEVER told my husband when they would be getting together for Christmas! He called and she was whishy washy.. about it. He finally just told our daughter, we will go on Christmas eve.. They got there and the family was in the middle of Christmas! Our daughter was not pleased.. She is now seeing what I have put up with for all of these years.

Yesterday we went to see Les Mes.. And my poor husband went back out to see his parents alone.. Broke my heart.

I'm so sorry about your mom. It would be a fresh pain each year that would color Christmas a bit.

For me, the past few Christmases have been strange, lacking somehow. So much so, that last year I sat down and had to write about what I wanted holidays to be. We have so much, everything we need and the holidays felt hollow. This year, I baked up a storm and my daughter and I drove around Christmas Eve day making deliveries to friends. It was wonderful just to be with my chosen community, meet family members, just connect.

Next year I think it will be about volunteering. Think my daughter will be the appropriate age and its time to stop just talking about gratitude and giving and really participate.

My daughter is turning six tomorrow and each Christmas I get to reflect about my sweet girl and the powerful love children bring - my favorite Christmas present.

I don't know if it was 'all I wanted it to be' because my expectations were pretty low. :) That said, it was fine. I could have used a bit more down time in the previous days, truly. However, my sister (who lives about 30 min away) hosted Christmas dinner at her house, and my folks were staying with her, so we had our first Christmas with them in about 11 years. (THAT Christmas 11 years ago... whole other story...which is why this was the first....)

Things went well. The best part, for me, was seeing my big teenage nephew, taller than us all, sitting down with our five year old son and helping him build legos. Seeing the new directions in my folks life was a little hard. Instead of fussing over things, they were 'checked out' on their smartphones A LOT. (I'm not sure which habit is harder to accommodate!) But no real complaints, and it was great to see that sister, too.:)

Mostly. I truly have a lot to be thankful for...I had Christmas with my DH and children which is what I insist upon...It was relaxing and low key.

The only downer for me was my Dad...he is completely toxic. I tried to have a surficial relationship with him for many years. When it got to the point where he would openly criticize me when I called for my DH, my job, my home...etc, I just decided that it wasn't worth it and pulled back. I figured that as a adult woman who has not asked this man for anything the past 20 years of my adult life, I just didn't need that negativity in my life. This year I just sent him a card with some restaurant gift cards. He apparently was going to send me a card (according to my stepmother), but he had written stuff like "I had made my choice and this was it" in it. My stepmother told him not to send it if he was going to be nasty.

So, his perception (although not true) is that I caused all of the problems in our non-existant relationship. This makes me sad not because I want a relationship with him, but that I have a father that is so crappy. His grandchildren are amazing and he will never know them.

So yeah...my Christmas was pretty good with one notable exception.

our christmas was 100x more than i would have hoped for. i think the key was keeping it small. our son got about 5 presents from santa (none over $20), plus his stocking. his "wow" present was a used leapster with three games that i got off craigslist. we had an unexpected windfall the week before, someone hit my husband's car while it was parked (he wasn't in it thank goodness) and we received a check from the insurance company, even though my husband fixed the tail light on the car for next to nothing...and we were tempted to go last minute nuts with the presents. but we didn't. we were responsible with the money, and i'm SO happy we were. we had a small simple christmas, and it was pure magic. everyone was happy and appreciative and wonderful...it was literally our best ever.

So glad you got into the spirit today! My family had a wonderful Christmas! It was my daughters first Christmas:) I got a hello kitty lunchbox that my son picked out himself, he insists its a purse. I enjoyed watching my kids open presents, my son even helped his baby sister open hers!

Yes it was . . . even though it was lighter this year it still felt really blessed and beautiful.

It was a wonderful Christmas! We didn't decorate much because we moved from SC to TX a little over 3 weeks ago and there was a lot of other stuff to do (unpacking and settling in, finding new doctors and getting our checkups, finding a new church, getting reacquainted with old friends, starting to homeschool my son for the 2nd half of kindergarten-he was in public before, plus the fun Christmas outings we wanted to hit to get out of the house). Saturday was my husband's birthday and a friend babysat so we could have a wonderful, much needed date. Sunday was that same friend's birthday so she came to our house where we cooked a great birthday dinner, played games, etc. On Christmas Eve went to a friend's house for a gift exchange, then another old friends to bake and hang out, we came home and after church we had the family gift exchange and watched a movie. On Christmas morning we read the Christmas story from the Bible, opened gifts, had our traditional breakfast, the kids played while I cooked, and we went to a friend's house for Christmas lunch. (She provided the entree and 3 desserts, I provided 2 appetizers, 4 side dishes, and a pie---that way we all had input and we all got things we wanted). It started snowing (my 2nd white Christmas EVER---funny enough, they're very rare here we had one our last Christmas here, and our first Christmas back). We played outside and tried to teach the kids how to make ''better'' snowballs. Snow angels, running around catching flakes in our mouths. We came in for cocoa and to defrost (adults had peppermint schnapps added to the cocoa--yum!), then we went to a hill and used an inflatable tube to slide down the hill on over and over---it was fun! When we were properly frozen through, we went on home to change clothes, cuddle on the couch, and watch "It's a Wonderful Life". The kids fell asleep, but we woke them for a little dinner, then put them to bed. It was sweet. It was simple, but it was special. The only thing that could have made it better was my mom coming too (she was all alone, and I was aware of it throughout the day, and called her 3 times). But I'm bringing the kids out there to see her next week, and my brother and his family are flying in that same week, so it'll be a belated family Christmas then. :)

my holidays were amazing. Lots of family and friends! No I did not get everything I wanted but I am content and happy with everything I did get. Watching my 4 year old with his presants was enough to make any holiday amazing.

The light in the childrens eyes make any holiday worth it. Now on to planning Easter beings New years is planned already...

Christmas is twelve days long. It doesn't end until January 6th. I always have to think of it as a twelve day celebration, otherwise I feel a huge letdown after the big day. It just seems like a whole month of preparation for a one day celebration is unrealistic. There is lots of time to do the things you had planned and didn't get to. For us we did our Christmas eve at church and Christmas day at home with just our family (and a visit to the neighbours). Today is our big family dinner. We have lots of celebrations planned for the rest of the holiday.

Merry Christmas for the final 30 minutes. Our Christmas was very bittersweet. I put so much thought and effort into gifts for my stepkids. Those ungrateful kids, they didn't even say thank you to their dad or me. So my husband said screw it, from here on out they get cash, we won't worry about it anymore. My mom and I still aren't on speaking terms so that was hard. But our son had a great day, he got lots of gifts and was so happy today. That took the sting out of the holiday for me. Even though now I'm at work and it's so nasty outside. I'm leaving for home in about 30 minutes and I'm scared to drive home but have to.

I say cut yourself some slack. (I mean that in a good way!) I think that as parents we put way more pressure on ourselves to give our kids an ideal holiday than they expect.
I didn't get around to doing the usual sugar cookie-cutout-decorate-athon that we usually do but the kids didn't notice. I only gave them about 3 pieces of candy in their stockings (the dentist bills have been steep!) and they didn't complain or notice. A few kids had a few more boxes to open than the others and they didn't notice. Any of the concerns that I had were unfounded and the day went on with happy kids already dreaming about next year's Christmas!