P.S. Christmas

Another Christmas has come and passed. Having traveled for the holidays, I keep forgetting Christmas ended nearly two weeks ago. I just assumed since Christmas started so early (Target was putting up their holiday section ON Halloween), people would hold onto it a bit longer. One little holiday tradition I started with the girls this year was to drive through "The Candy Cane Forest" nightly. It is the neighborhood next to ours that celebrates a tradition of putting a giant candy cane on their lawn. The amazing thing is every house goes all out for Christmas and has the best light displays I've ever seen. It is a quintessential Christmas staple...the lights make the season magical. And magic and toddlerhood are bosom buddies. So what started as desperate distraction/adventure to make it through a long day (days are always longer when my husband travels for work), turned out to spark some serious Christmas spirit and put my girls in awe. Every night once the sun would set the girls would beg to go. So for the weeks leading up to our trip home, we grew to love the candy cane forest. Every night in Ohio we would seek another light display like that but nothing came close. So of course the girls had to see it when we got home. We drove through on January 1 and it was nearly gone. Save a few houses, all candy canes were unlit. You saw their sad little skeletons in the dark, unlit. The magic is gone and in its place is just the small hollow feeling. I see my house all year decorated the same...and for a mere few weeks some decorations fill me with such joy. It's like for a few weeks I see things like Claire and Norah do most every single day. So seeing the lights either off or just completely removed signaled an abrupt end.

"Look...tinkerbell jammies!"

Giving Maggie some hugs

But today the girls had a P.S. Christmas! We visited our babysitter and Texas sister Maggie. Oh the girls love her. She had two little gifts for the girls. And because she knows them so well, she got them their favorite thing...pjs! They love pjs so much they constantly wear them around the house. Somedays they wear multiple pairs. But today the girls wanted to wear their new ones. Aside from their amazing presents, their trip to Maggie's was sweet. Claire emulated her by walking around in her blue shoes holding her keys and Norah just kept hugging her. Warms my heart to see how much they love and trust her.

SANTA CAME!

But more Christmas came later. Their box of shipped Christmas gifts arrived. Even though they had opened them and already played with them in Ohio, they still had that sheer joy where they gasp with shock/excitement. In some ways it felt like Christmas morning all over again.  It was the perfect ending to our Christmas this year...now all we have left to do is take down our Christmas lights (and yes, they are still light at night).