Merry Christmas blog family. It is hard to believe Christmas has come and gone, especially since there is NO snow here in Wisconsin. But, wow, that is all I can say when you are celebrating Christmas with a three year old.  Not sure if it is a wow, that was exhausting or wow, that was amazing. I think I will go with the latter of the two but it really was exhausting. Between our celebration with Heather and our little family Christmas as a family of three we celebrated six, yes six, Christmas’ this year. Oh, and one more to go in January. But I love every minute of it.

I look forward to this time of year every single year. It is my favorite holiday of the year, celebrating Jesus’ birthday. And I absolutely love spending time with our families. There is something magical about watching Jackson play with his Heesch cousins. There is something fun in watching him wrestle my sister’s kids (even if it includes a bloody ear).  It is funny to watch him want to tackle his girl cousins and not be able to because he doesn’t understand the meaning of gentle.

We are still trying to balance out what we teach Jackson about this time of the year. It is hard to teach him about the true meaning of Christmas when everyone around him is talking about Santa Claus. It is hard not to let him know about Santa but what I want to stress to him is the beautiful birth of Jesus at this time of the year. So, we allow him to have presents from Santa but know the true meaning of Christmas at the same time.

Oh and we can’t even fit all of our presents in one trip. Are you kidding me? Who needs this many presents? I like to say that Jackson is spoiled but everyone just reminds me how loved he is. And isn’t that the truth. He really is loved by so many. I can’t get over how much this boy has changed our lives but not only our lives, the lives of so many around him. But again, why so many presents? Next year we are taking a page out of our cousins’ book and asking for “experiences” for Christmas. Instead of allowing his grandparents, great-grandparents, etc (who ever wants to participate) to buy him presents, they can have experiences together. I absolutely love this idea.

As we were opening our gifts from Heather and her family I couldn’t help but fight back the tears. Not sad tears but most definitely happy tears. Heather got him a superhero art set (he loves to color, paint, etc), her mom got him dinosaurs (another favorite) and got us the most precious frame with pictures from our family picture day (and $ which was definitely unnecessary but very much appreciated!), and Aunt Mary who doesn’t listen to her no gifts rule got him a gift card to the bookstore (which he shouts “Hey, there is the bookstore” when we drive by. And not to mention several cards from her family expressing their love for us. I mention this because I was surprised just how well they knew Jackson. But of course I shouldn’t be so surprised they do know him, they have gotten to know him pretty well over the last several months actually. And it makes this momma’s heart just want to explode!

We have another busy week to end our 2017, including a wedding, my last 5k of 2017 and a New Year’s celebration with some of my favorite people on this planet. Here is to 2018!