Taking a Holiday Around Town
Christmas is coming. Soon, it will be over. What will life look like once it’s gone? Pretty much the same, I suppose. But maybe a fun filled week or two off from school will reignite our drive to persevere in the face of this maddening pandemic, among other things. I’m staring at you, political world.
I’ve digressed from my original purpose – hoping that everyone out there is having a wonderful holiday season. We hope that colorful or white lights sparkle more brilliantly this year in the evening hours. A little trick us parents have figured out during the holidays – drive around different neighborhoods at night to see all of the Christmas decorations.
Our kids love these family drives. We have the kids dress in a light jacket, bring a blanket for them, and turn on some holiday tunes. We also open the screen leading to the moon roof, so they can watch any lights that are hanging overhead. By the way, to the houses that find a way to string up colorful snowflakes, almost like an archway or one of those beautiful European streets you see in travel videos, so you literally are driving underneath of them, bravo!
One other thing we have been enjoying is taking turn picking movies. Our first pick was Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Story, which is absolutely amazing! If I recommend one movie to watch around this time of year, this is it. Such a fantastic story. Next up, Alien Xmas. Talk about a super cute movie that was really fun to watch. Then there’s The Christmas Chronicles and Home Alone, and who knows what else might come on the tube by week’s end. Oh, the kids also loved the new Lego Star Wars Holiday Special. Ah, after my own geeky heart.
Keeping Those Holiday Traditions
What’s our number one holiday tradition? For us, our kids open gifts on Christmas eve morning. We’ve always stayed overnight on Christmas eve at Meghan’s parents. Then, the kids would have all of their presents to open up on Christmas day. We’ve created a system where we can let the kids have two days of opening gifts, so we’ll always count that as a win. Since that’s not possible this year, we’ll settle for a video chat where they can still watch the kiddos open their gifts.
Now, our Christmas eve morning is a little more than just opening gifts. The kids usually take part in helping to make monkey bread, and as they open their stockings, a delicious aroma fills the house. As soon as it’s ready, we stop what we’re doing and eat some ooey gooey buttery cinnamony bread. It’s perfect.
Anyway, the point of this post is to tell everyone that whatever you’re doing to celebrate the holidays, it’s okay. Whether watching classic movies, having a snowball fight when it snows, ordering takeout, driving around to check out all of the lights, or even mailing letters to Santa keep it up. Your kids will remember these times that showed off how much time we spent together – and when it’s all we can really do at the moment, these fond memories are going to be important.
Until the new year comes around, we hope everyone has a very merry holiday.
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