The important gifts

Christmas is just days away and I am glad to say...my stress level is pretty good right now.

I made it a point not to go overboard and get all stressed out this holiday season. We have tried hard to communicate to the kids and help them learn what this season truly is about and in order to do that I have cut back on things. If I didn't have time to do something I have reminded myself that I am ok with it just not getting done. There are a lot of "traditions" that our society seems to put on Christmas and our family won't be following those this year. It isn't necessarily by choice but more of realizing what our priorities are and making sure that we didn't ruin this holiday season for ourselves individually and for our kids by becoming so stressed that we just couldn't function normally.

Is this going to affect others? Yep. It sure will. Some of you reading this may just be one of those people...so this is just a heads up for you :)

So, here is what we won't have done in time for Christmas...
1) clothes picked out for the kids to wear in their photos. I don't have time to get to the store these days. We did have a plan for this but because of financial reasons and time this just wasn't going to happen.
2) If we don't have clothes picked out for the kids to wear in photos, guess what comes next? Yes, we have not had the kids' pictures taken this year. The bigger ones did get their school pictures taken (thank you to those photographers that just come in and do this! One less thing I have to schedule). We do have one little guy though that is not in school yet so we don't have a new photo of him yet. We will. Not sure when. Someday.
3) Christmas cards. I do appreciate Christmas cards but I think at the same time I appreciate them I become more and more annoyed by them. I like seeing photos of those that I don't see very often. I like hearing about what people are up to and what is going on in their lives. I do like getting mail other than bills. Because of a lack of time, Christmas cards just aren't going to get done this year either. If you are reading this blog you are getting more updates than what I can put on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper anyways. We may have family that doesn't like this or is expecting to hear from us through a card. Maybe we will surprise you and send something out a different time of year. Wouldn't that be merrier and more exciting anyways...you aren't expecting it and then BAM...in your mailbox is a letter from The Williams Family!
4) Gifts. There are some special gifts that our family likes to do. I even have some ideas of what I want to do but unfortunately, with time slipping away, I am not sure if it is going to get done or not. I like to make ornaments for all of our family members (this started because of my crafty aunt). My ornaments don't look like hers but they are pretty cool, I think. This year they are very unique and the kids are helping me with them too. We just need a day to work on them and that time thing is what stops us from getting stuff done. We usually do other things too for the holidays and because of deadlines and extra work things that have come up for me these last two weeks of December, those unfortunately have to take priority since my paycheck depends on it. I have extra paperwork to do this weekend, when I was planning on doing Christmas stuff and I wasn't expecting this extra mountain of work to appear before me.

We did get our tree up...twice actually. It fell down once and all the decorations came down with it. So, we have done this tradition twice. Memories :) I think I will have the memory of me trying to hoist the tree back up from the floor as water was pouring out of the bottom, day care kids standing around me asking me what I did. Pretty sure that will be the memory that I have of our tree this year.

We have done some baking...some, not much. I have no self control when it comes to cookies and treats so when I make it, it goes right to the freezer so I don't eat the whole bag. I have also had the kids do most of the cooking making this year too. We even had the neighbor kid come over and help out too. We have plans for more cooking making but have had some other things come up on days when we were planning on rolling out the dough.

We will be attending one neighborhood party this year too. I am looking forward to it! The kids always have fun too.

We also have done some shopping for the kids. Chris has actually taken control of most of this...Thank you! I'm trying to help out as best as I can. Example...some day care days I have a smaller number of kids so we go on a field trip. Last week we went to Hallmark. Yes, Hallmark with a 3 year old, 2 year old and a baby are not fun. We only had 15 minutes before we had to be back in the car and on the road to get Micah from school. It was a very fast trip in and out of the store, several comments made of "no touching" and lots of people smiling and waving at the little ones...and probably people wondering why I was bringing 3 small kids into a store with breakable items. Christmas. That would be my answer. That would be the only reason why I would bring 3 small kids into that store.

The important gift this year...is it really the Christmas card? Is it the photo that will be put in a pile of other photos that probably won't get looked at again? Is it the tree that you decorate to help represent this season?

What is the important gift that you want to share with others this year?