(friend shanna helped me decorate the tree this year! isn't it a beauty?! and ps, i didn't forget about the bottom 1/4 of the tree. the missing ornaments and ribbon were purposely placed at a higher level! i'm sure you can imagine why.)I have always loved Christmastime. Once Thanksgiving is over, I'm in a rush to get the tree up, put up lights, and hang stockings. I love Christmas music, and houses decorated with lights, and baking Christmas goodies, and singing Christmas hymns at church, and reading the story of Christ's birth, and accumulating gifts for the people I love, and picking out a wrapping theme, and of course actually wrapping the gifts! Oh, there are so many things to love.
Although I have always loved this time of year, this particular Christmas is different. It's a new kind of Christmas, and I am in absolute LOVE with it. The difference...my Noah is almost 16 months, and although not completely aware of what Christmas is, his little life has inspired a whole new level of celebration. Of course, technically last year was his first Christmas, and it was wholly and entirely lovely and special and everything I imagined it could be, but he was still an infant. Now he's a toddler, and he has a personality, and he responds and interacts with me! He gets to eat my Christmas cookies, he gets to make the light sign at the Christmas tree, he gets to play with his sock monkey ornament, he gets to look forward to seeing his grandparents and aunts and uncles, he gets to dance and clap to Christmas music, he gets to be with us to pick out a Christmas tree, he gets to help daddy put up the tree, he gets to look at holiday lights, and he gets to run around with a cookie stained face at Christmas parties.
Yes, this Christmas has a new life. Instead of focusing on how I can make the season special for me and Matt, now I'm flooded with ideas on how to make it special for Noah. I sure hope he loves it as much as I do.
In the coming years as he grows, I look forward to making Christmas ornaments, and stringing popcorn, and letting him help frost sugar cookies and gingerbread men, and teaching him the real meaning of Christmas, and getting his input on what tree we get, and snuggling with cups of hot cocoa in from of Miracle on 34th Street, and his excitement as we rush down each morning to look in his Advent stocking. Traditions...ah!
Speaking of traditions, each year Nana gets Noah a special ornament and I started doing the same thing for him. So this year, Nana got him a vintage toy telephone that is ADORABLE, and I got him a sock monkey. Debbie and I picked out the telephone because Matt and I both had the original as children, and my mom (Grams) has often talked about getting one for Noah, and Hallmark actually made an ornament-sized one! The sock monkey came about because, Aunt Sarah originally got him the traditional sock monkey, and then Uncle Ben and Aunt Marsa`gave Noah a sock monkey jack-in-the-box for his birthday, and they just recently also gave him a blue sock monkey. I say three qualifies as a collection, so, we added a fourth with the ornament. I put it low enough on the tree so that he can get it to play with.
Yes, this Christmas has a new life. Instead of focusing on how I can make the season special for me and Matt, now I'm flooded with ideas on how to make it special for Noah. I sure hope he loves it as much as I do.
In the coming years as he grows, I look forward to making Christmas ornaments, and stringing popcorn, and letting him help frost sugar cookies and gingerbread men, and teaching him the real meaning of Christmas, and getting his input on what tree we get, and snuggling with cups of hot cocoa in from of Miracle on 34th Street, and his excitement as we rush down each morning to look in his Advent stocking. Traditions...ah!
Speaking of traditions, each year Nana gets Noah a special ornament and I started doing the same thing for him. So this year, Nana got him a vintage toy telephone that is ADORABLE, and I got him a sock monkey. Debbie and I picked out the telephone because Matt and I both had the original as children, and my mom (Grams) has often talked about getting one for Noah, and Hallmark actually made an ornament-sized one! The sock monkey came about because, Aunt Sarah originally got him the traditional sock monkey, and then Uncle Ben and Aunt Marsa`gave Noah a sock monkey jack-in-the-box for his birthday, and they just recently also gave him a blue sock monkey. I say three qualifies as a collection, so, we added a fourth with the ornament. I put it low enough on the tree so that he can get it to play with.
Merry Christmas!
1 comment:
Very, very sweet. Merry Christmas!
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