Christmas blessings and struggles

Christmas is BY FAR my most favorite time of the year. I LOVE it! I love the decorations, the smells, the family, the movies, pretty much everything. I am excited for this year! Brody and Delaney are at such a fun age! Just walking through Costco or Target is exciting with them as we saunter through the Christmas aisles. I have been jammin' the Josh Grobin's Christmas CD and the Very Merry Christmas Kidz Bop for the kids and they LOVE it- btw,when does the "Holidays and Happenings" channel start happening on DirecTV? Totally annoying. Anyway, this year were are determined to have a way less stressful Christmas season. I don't want to stress over the gifts, over how much we spent and how many presents are under the tree. I have a lot of shopping done- I like to buy clearance items throughout the year. I don't have everything done so what's remaining, I want to be fun. I want to have a date with Eric where we go to dinner and then shopping. I want to have a lunch date with my mom (and my dad if he wants to come) and then have a peaceful afternoon of shopping. I am bummed that I have so many gifts already because I am struggling with 'the true meaning of Christmas'. I want Christmas to be about family and memories, not about the quantity of gifts.
 Growing up, we were blessed. We always had big Christmas'. BUT, while the gifts we received were wonderful, I remember the things we did, more than what we got. Watching White Christmas each Christmas Eve is our family tradition. I will always remember different years doing it. One year, we thought our grandpa (my Granddaddy) was sound asleep when all of a sudden the song "Snow" came on and he belted it out! Scared the crap out of, but initiated the sing a long. My sister and I LOVE to sing the "Sisters" song and we drink hot chocolate, have popcorn and Grandma Ann's delectable chocolate Christmas cookies. I remember moments- like one year, my brother, sister and I got my parents a new coffee maker and being the sneaky sneaky kids we were, we snuck out in the middle of the night (after Santa had visited) and set up the coffee maker with the timer set to come on first thing in the morning. We even bought them new mugs and special holiday creamer. I loved that.
When we were younger (not last year, I promise) my sister (who is 7 years younger) would always sleep with me on Christmas Eve. We would set our alarm for some ridiculous time, like 3:00 am, go wake up our brother and then tip toe to the living room to see the goods. Then , we would excitedly run back to our rooms and re-set our alarms for 6:00. We would wake our parents and go out to the living room- where we were allowed to open our stockings until they had had their coffee. My mom ALWAYS made a big breakfast. We're talking eggs, bacon, toast, biscuits, everything. So yummy.
I also remember that we were pretty bummed one year, that we were not going to be able to have our normal Christmas Eve tradition because my dad had a trip. We ended up watching White Christmas a couple days early and to our complete surprise, Santa ended up coming that night! We woke up the next morning and had Christmas early, so my dad could be there.

Last Christmas

I want our kids to be excited about the traditions and the family time. That's why I feel like tons and tons of gifts take away from that. My friend's sister only give three gifts- like the wise men did. Something you need, something you want, and something to read. I also saw another version of this which was, something you want, something to read, something to wear, something you need. I dunno.... I feel conflicted!! Ahhh! Maybe we will adopt some version of that next year.... after we think about it and figure out how it will work. But this year, I will try my hardest to soak up every moment I can and make as many memories as possible.