our un-picture-perfect Christmas

One thing I hate about blogging after the fact is that it's hard to record true emotions. Maybe that isn't a bad thing, though? Well, this is is the post I'm going to talk about how different our Christmas was. I guess I had these high hopes that we would have a perfect first Christmas in our cute little home.

Ideal: We would decorate the tree as a family as Christmas music played in the background. Reality: It took us a week to get it all decorated. And half of our lights didn't work.

Ideal: We would get in our new Sunday best the Sunday before Christmas and enjoy the Christmas program. We would get a cute family photo afterwards and enjoy 4th advent together. Reality:  Brandon and I got the flu, but mine was never severe enough to stay home. I took both kids to church by myself. Brandon in his kind attempt to help, dressed Blake, but not in his Christmas bowtie. Gasp! He wore blue shoes with black pants. I got to church late. I had no Christmas spirit. And we didn't celebrate 4th advent. And I was in no way in the mood to fight Blake to take his binki out.

Ideal: We would get an amazing photo with Santa. Reality: Brandon was still sick. Blake was petrified of Old St. Nick.   We didn't all look at the camera and I hate the way the flash is bouncing off us.

Ideal: We would have all the painting done and a nice quiet, settled house ready for Christmas day. We could cuddle up to Christmas movies while snuggling with little Miss E. Reality: We didn't watch our first Christmas movie until the Sunday after Christmas. And our house is still in disarray.

We still had a wonderful Christmas, although far from what I envisioned. I guess I'm learning (read: still need to learn) to relax and let go of my envisions of a everything turning out perfectly. I'm already looking forward to next Christmas when we can enjoy the season more and hopefully have things more under control.