From one December to the next

Well, so much for trying to blog every day.  Obviously since it's been nearly 3 weeks!!!!  I failed.  But, you know what, even so, I can always try to start it again now :)

The Christmas spirit has done an amazing job of evading me.  A lot of this month, I've felt like I've been going through the motions.  I put the Christmas decorations up in hopes that it would get me feeling like Christmas.  It didn't quite work.  I put Cinnamon Apple glade plug ins, again in hopes of catching that spirit.  Dusty put up lights outside, which he was so excited about and did such an amazing job with, and again, it was refusing to come to me.  I had purchased a few gifts for the girls' cousins in August, but that had been all the shopping I had done so far, last Wednesday and Thursday, I did all the rest of the shopping.  I did a lot of wrapping, trying to get it all done before Kaitlyn was on winter break.  Samantha was an amazing trooper with lots of all day shopping.  We watched Elf as a family together (Kaitlyn's first time), we went to holiday parties, did family photos, sent out Christmas cards, we went and saw Santa, we looked at Christmas lights and still, it was just not happening.

On Sunday, we decorated the cemetery.  We took Matthew his tree.  We took him his Santa's, his nativity scene, his Jesus figurines and we made it sparkle just for him.  He is so incredibly missed.

This year would have been his 4th Christmas.  For Kaitlyn's 4th Christmas she was so excited for Christmas.  She told Santa she had to have the Barbie Diamond Castle doll house that made noise and lit up.  Santa, of course, was happy to oblige.  I wonder what he would have asked for?  A car to drive in the backyard?  A big boy bike?  Something to do with Cars or Toys Story?  Tonka Trucks?  Dinosaurs?  Would he be super excited or more laid back about it?  Would he have cried with Santa or ran up excited?  Would it have been harder to take Santa pictures with 3 kids in the picture instead of 2?

Decorating at the cemetery definitely helped.  It helped make our family feel like we were partially complete at Christmas.

Tonight we went to Discovery Kingdom's holiday in the park.  A place of wonder and magic.  A gazillion lights and fake snow hills to slide down.  A place with Santa's workshop where Santa has nothing better to do than spend 20 minutes talking to your kids about their year before handing out some Twix bars.  It was chilly, I could see my breath when I talked.  I had to actually wear a jacket and borrow Dusty's gloves.  It felt like Christmas.

It's Christmas time.  And I'm getting excited.  Tomorrow we are going to host a small, intimate and magical Winter Wonderland party.  The wind is keeping me from having it outside like I had originally planned, but I plan on using way too many twinkle lights anyways as we open our doors to some of our favorite kids and await the special visit from Santa.

I'm excited about giving a very special niece and nephew their presents and watching them open them.  I'm hoping they love them.  I'm excited about the family in Alabama getting their presents and hoping they have a blast playing with their gifts. I'm excited for Christmas Eve and watching our niece open her present and keeping my fingers crossed it's still something she wants!  And I am most excited about putting the littles to bed on Christmas Eve and then staying up with my best friend and partner in everything and playing Mr. and Mrs. Claus while setting up gifts and eating cookies.  I know the are both going to flip out Christmas morning when they see what Santa has left.

I cannot believe this year is already nearly over.  I cannot believe Samantha is already closing in on 14 months and Kaitlyn is more than halfway to teenagerhood.  I cannot begin to believe that Matthew is not going to be here for yet another Christmas.  I swear, the only thing that could possibly make this time of year any better is for him to still be here with us.

With Christmas just a couple days away, I hope that your heart is warm with Christmas Cheer and your life is filled with nothing but peace and joy.