Joy to the World

 It’s always a weird feeling when Christmas has come and passed. We spend so much time preparing, stressing, trying to get everything together for this one day – and then it’s over. We have the new presents, memories, and a joy in heart from the Holiday, but it always feels like something is gone afterwards. Does anyone else feel this after Christmas rut? For me it’s not as bad this year – to be honest I feel like every day with Maddie Grace is a present and they just keep getting better, it’s kind of hard to be down about anything.

But back to Christmas. We had a really nice Christmas this year. The first Christmas Tom and I were dating was the last time I spent a Christmas at home with my family in Savannah. That was in 2009. That was a long time ago. Things have changed so much since then though. When I say family what I really mean is my dad, since he was the only family member of mine in Savannah this year. Funny how things change, but other things stay the same. We went to the Christmas Eve service at our church which has always been our family tradition. My family church is an old-fashioned fancy church in downtown Savannah. It’s the type of church where the guys wear suits even when it’s 100+ degrees outside and there is a for real organ, and a choir in robes of course. The Christmas Eve service always ends with a candle lighting and singing hymns on the steps of the church. It’s really beautiful and something I’ve always cherished attending.

 

Another family tradition of ours is to open one present on Christmas Eve, so we did that afterwards as well. I gave Tom a present I specially picked out, Cards Against Humanity, so that we could go ahead and play it. We’d never actually played before, and I did not realize how… crude… some of the cards were. That type of stuff really doesn’t bother me, but there were some cards I wanted to imagine my dad did not know the meaning of, so I went through the deck and pulled out about 1/3 of the cards before we started playing to avoid things getting uncomfortable.

Christmas day we woke up and opened presents of course! Tom and I really only got Maddie Grace 2 presents, since we knew she wasn’t going to really remember this year’s Christmas anyways, and she got several already that she loves from her grandparents. The presents we did buy her were big hits though. We ended up getting her the B. Parum Pum Pum Drum which is toy drum full of music making toys that are really cute. I thought it might be a little too old for her right now, but she loves shaking the different instruments and making noise. We also noticed last time at the doctor’s office that she loved the toy mazes, so we bought her this Melissa & Doug First Bead Maze, which I think is genius because it has suction cups to stick to high chair trays to divert your little one from immediately throwing it on the floor. She loves it, and so do we. But MG’s favorite part of Christmas was probably the wrapping paper. Oh boy was that fun, she wanted to help everyone open their gifts, such a little helper.

Another Christmas tradition for us is sausage and cream cheese pinwheels and mimosas. After which we went to the beach for a Christmas day walk. The weather here was gorgeous in the upper 60’s on Christmas Day.

We are still enjoying time in Savannah and the weather has continued to get warmer and warmer, with temperatures reaching 80 today! We have spent quality time with my dad and old friends, gone to the little “zoo” close to my dads house, and shopped those after Christmas sales of course. We are staying here through New Years and are hoping to make it to Charleston this week for a day trip.

I genuinely hope everyone reading this had a joyous Christmas or Holiday. Have any special Christmas Eve or Day traditions or did you start one this year? Please share with me below!