Christmas

Christmas tried to sneak up on me. It always does. Especially here in South Carolina, where there's no bitter-cold snowy nights to remind me that it really is December. In fact, we were outside on Christmas Eve in short sleeves enjoying the warmth and sunshine. I think the temp was in the high 60's. (Have I mentioned that I love living in the South?) My kids didn't let me forget about their favorite holiday, though. My boys started talking about the toys they wanted to get back in July. And the day after Halloween, Walmart was playing Christmas music in their store (which seems a tad early if you ask me).

Leading up to Christmas, we always try to play down the Santa Claus side of things (besides, of course, using the naughty list as a threat for bad behavior). We don't want the kids to get hung up on Christmas being only about getting lots of presents. Besides, we didn't have extra money to spend this year, seeing as we just built a house, and replaced my old used car with a newer used car. Money seems to go out the door faster than we can bring it in! I'm sure you can all relate.

On that note, one small blessing in 2011 was that I was able to start making jewelry again. Alivia has gotten old enough to play happily along side me in my art studio while I work. So in the fall, I figured I'd try to get in on the Christmas traffic that was starting up. So I got busy cutting glass and making some new things, then steadily listed new pieces in my Etsy shop every other day or so. It felt so good to be doing something creative again! I also started promoting my site on Facebook and Etsy, which helped a great deal. Soon after, the sales started picking up, and by Christmas, I had sold more than I had for the previous two years combined. Granted, I hadn't been actively promoting my shop since before Alivia was born in 2009, so that's not saying much. But it was a blessing nonetheless. We were able to catch up on those extra expenses after buying my car in October.

All seemed well on Christmas Eve. Dustin and I had fun getting everything ready for the next morning. We were even done with the wrapping and arranging well before midnight, so we were able to go to bed at a decent hour. Not that it mattered, because around 2 am, Alivia woke up for no apparent reason. I was up and down with her for about two hours! I could not get her to go back to sleep. And she's usually an 11-hour-a-night sleeper. Then Owen woke up at around 5 am crying that his ear hurt. I gave him some Tylenol and sent him back to bed. Alivia was still waking up, so I finally woke up Dustin to help out. It was a crazy night! We hardly got any sleep. But morning came, and the kids woke up excitedly to find full stockings and lots of presents under the tree. Owen woke up with a fever, still complaining about his ear. So only Ethan and I went to church. When we got home, we ate some lunch and then started the opening of presents. About midway through, Owen threw up all over the sofa and the floor! So we had a brief interruption while we assessed the damage and cleaned up. He was pretty much throwing up and sick for the rest of the day. When the doctor opened on Tuesday, I took him in. The poor boy had an inner AND outer ear infection on one side. Luckily, we got him on some medicine and he immediately started feeling better.

Other than the lack of sleep, and one puking boy, Christmas was loads of fun! (Some sarcasm intended.) The boys got all the Legos their little hearts desired (about 572,000,000 pieces...) and Alivia got her fair share of real girl toys. I got Dustin new slippers and he got me a Dremel tool to polish the metal on my jewelry. Yeah!

Alivia's new big girl training pants!

 

 Poor sick Owen, post puke. :(

Ethan with a the "original" Legos! They also got Lego Ninjago, Lego Hero Factory and several others. We should be all set now, right? Until the next big thing comes out.

Even the kitties got a present. They love their new kitty bed!