We’re very fortunate to live near the majority of our extended family. That provides us with the opportunity to celebrate Christmas many times with many people and not have to travel through airports, train stations or sit in the car for hours on end. The only major drawback to that scenario is that we have to shoehorn our little family Christmas celebration in wherever we can. This year, we fit it into December 23rd, between regular house maintenance/errands and our volunteer shift at church. After both girls were rested and fed, Christmas commenced!
First we attempted a cute Christmas photo with both girls in front of the tree. But in every family, there’s someone who makes odd faces or gestures either on purpose or because that’s just the way they look. We have Lillian – our little clown. Several photos in which she looks like she has to go to the bathroom, but we did get a few good ones eventually.
This year, there was no hesitation in the gift opening. Both girls did an extraordinary job of waiting their turn and watching others open without getting antsy or overly greedy. Sometimes they were a little too dainty with opening, peeling off small pieces of paper at a time. It became an exercise in patience for an excited mommy and daddy!
So many great gifts and the favorites were the boxes (of course) and ribbon dancers (ribbons attached to a stick).
Loran threatened to purchase Lillian a drum set, and while he didn’t hold true to that promise, thankfully – he did come through with a Rock and Roll Elmo. Both girls vacillated between excited/intrigued/mortified/mystified/curious/apprehensive with Elmo’s performance. He’s a lot to take in, and uses the phrase “yeah baby!” a few too many times for me – but the girls enjoy dancing to his tunes.
While they were very content to watch others open their gifts, they were ecstatic to be asked to help open other’s gifts. Even large gifts didn’t stop Lillian, she just climbed them.
Everyone received something to take care of this year, Ella has her doll Rebecca, Lillian got a baby and Loran got a beer making kit!
After opening gifts and spending some time playing, we were off to church to volunteer for our shift in nursery. 25 services this year in two days across five campuses. By the start, there had already been 25,000 RSVPs – more than the total attendance of last year’s services. We were prepared for the mayhem that only many toddlers at the 6pm service can bring. Thankfully, we ‘only’ had twelve toddlers to take care of (one was Lillian) and four adults. Totally manageable with the help of bubbles, goldfish crackers and lots of toys and fun. Once church was over and all of the children had been reunited with their families, we were able to have dinner at church that people had provided for the volunteers. That was a nice addition and added to our family’s Christmas celebration.
It doesn’t matter when you shoehorn in your family Christmas, as long as you celebrate with the spirit of love and keep Jesus in your heart, it will always be memorable and special no matter the date or time of day. I love our little Gutt family!
And for extra Christmas flare – this month was the first that Ella remembered the memory verse from church. Every month they get a card with the verse to practice. She remembered this just through church attendance because we’d misplaced her card for most of the month and only started practicing when we found the card right before Christmas. But Ella now knows Luke 2:11…
No comments:
Post a Comment