A New Chirstmas Tradition

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas weekend. We sure did! We enjoyed a nice family meal on Thursday evening which consisted of Honey Baked Ham, asparagus, rice stuffing, and fruit salad. We had the kids in bed by 8pm and then the final wrapping, counting, and organizing of presents began. I had to make sure the kids had the same number of presents because I thought there would be hurt feelings if they didn't. EJ ended up with 2 more gifts than Ellie Mae and I was trying so hard to "figure it all out!" I thought about taking a few away and saving them as birthday presents but my really "mean and doesn't know anything" husband wrapped them all up and set them out and said "they shouldn't care and neither should you."

Well for some stupid reason I let that get me all upset and I kind of let it ruin my night (at least for a good hour.) I was just so worried about the imminent tantrum and hurt feelings that my kids were sure to have the next morning. You know what? Mr. PD was sooo right. The kids didn't even notice!!! We just let them take turns back and forth opening presents and we let Ellie Mae open up some of the "family" gifts to make up for her lack of gifts. let me re-iterate.... they DIDN"T care!!! Really I don't know why I even made such a big deal. {sheesh}

On Christmas day we enjoyed watching the kids unwrap their presents and were glad that they were pleased with every one of their gifts. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner with friends that night. There was so much food and it was all soooo good!

We did start a new tradition this year though. I don't remember where I read this, at first I thought it was from a comment I had received but I went back through my comments and could not find it anywhere. It must have come from someones blog {so THANK YOU whoever you were!} The new tradition consists of buying a new ornament for our kids every year. A special thoughtful ornament that represents some achievement in their life for that year. Then when that child is married you give them all of their ornaments as a wedding or Christmas present. How cool is that!? We all know how tight money is that first year without having to worry about buying home decor items. I may have to do this for us (as a couple) and add a new ornament every year that represents something special.

For EJ I wanted to get something that represented his first year of school. For Ellie Mae I wanted something to represent her love of ballerinas. Well we didn't decide to do this until 3 days before Christmas, and those were slim pickins at all the ornament shops! I finally settled on some Alabama football players to represent our move to good ole Alabama. Roll Tide! {I found them Christmas Eve!}