This was going to be our first Christmas as parents and we were very excited. I had a definite plan in my mind about how we wanted to have our Christmas and unfortunately it did not match the way my in-laws expected it to be. They wanted us to come over Christmas Eve and then come back on Christmas day. Now my mother in law had the Christmas Eve celebration the same way every single year. It started at the same time every time; she wanted it to start at 6. Her evening is scheduled that we would go over, eat and open a few gifts.
However with three little kids we did not want to get home late we had given a lot of thought to how we wanted to celebrate our holidays and what traditions we wanted to start with our kids. We wanted to be home early enough that we could have hot cocoa, watch some Christmas classics and open Christmas PJ’s before we would put the kids down and wait for Santa. If we decided to do Christmas Eve with my in laws starting at 6 pm it would have us get home too late for any of that to happen. We tried to see if they would do a lunch instead of dinner but my mother in law is very set in her holiday ways and she was not willing to budge so we graciously declined the invitation for Christmas Eve. It did not go over well especially when they found out we would not be going over on Christmas morning.
Christmas is a time for the kids and the idea of the boys waking up and seeing their presents, maybe open one or two then drive an hour to the in laws just did not seem right. We wanted them to be home open their presents and play with them. Anyone who wanted to come over was more than welcomed but we were going to be staying home with our kids.
We wanted to make this such a special one we may have gone overboard on presents it looked like a toy store in our living room. The look on his face when he got to bring the toys to his room, in his toy box for him and his brother to play with was priceless. To be honest the thing he was most excited about was clothes! He wanted to try everything on and was showing everyone his clothes. This pulled on our hearts because it was sad that a child should have been deprived in the past that having new clothes was that thrilling.