I skipped right over Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I love Thanksgiving time. It's nice to focus on our many blessings. I try each day to be grateful, and focus on the good. Cause let's face it, life is hard. I was just talking today about how a positive attitude really does change your perspective on mundane, boring tasks. I try almost every night to have the kids give me 3 things they are thankful for that day. Sometimes I get eye rolls, I don't care. Hopefully, the focusing on the good will help them to be more aware of all they things they have been blessed with.
I've seen some awesome gratitude journals. I'm such a poor journal writer. I really should find an easy way to document. I think I'll do a weekly gratitude post. Then it's recorded in the yearly book. I'll do Thankful Thursdays and see how many I can get written down in the year. Hold me to it.
The most important parts of Thanksgiving is the time spent together with family. My mom hosts a grandkids mini pie making afternoon the day before Thanksgiving every year. She is a trooper. Cause sometimes it gets a little crazy. That's one of the many things I love about my mom. She will sacrifice anything (time, comfort, sleep, a clean house turning into a messy house) for her family to have a good time. For the kids to have time with each other playing and making good memories. She's awesome like that.
There's even a random kid in there. Friend of Sadies :)
Christmas was great this year. It's always great, but I had pretty low stress about it. I think it's crazy how I tend to go a little overboard. Never really having a plan. Then going to the store to pick up one more thing because it's not quite even between the four kids. Crazy! This year, I told the kids: want, need, wear, read and Santa. That's it. I got what they really wanted and didn't have to guess. It was fabulous. Definitely a new tradition!
I never even picked up my camera. Didn't get any pictures on Christmas morning. Gasp. Oh well. It happened, and it was fun:)