sherriknits

Did you have a nice day yesterday?  We had a low-key dinner.  This is what our table looked like before we gathered around it to eat.

  There was way too much food and just enough laughing and love to share. We had my mom and Ben & Brittany here with us for the meal.

After dinner, the rest of the kids came over and we ate dessert and they drew names for Christmas. 

I am getting more and more to the point that I want simple and less stress.  Yesterday was that way and I am hoping we can pull it off for Christmas.  I don’t feel inclined to make myself crazy and lose the whole spirit of Christmas.

I’m struggling, though…we’ve always bought our kids pajamas for Christmas day and a few years ago we made the rule that anyone here wore jammies all day.  It always worked until the kids all started scattering  and it isn’t the same fun for them.  This is fine and this year I told them I wasn’t going to buy everyone new pj’s.  The problem is that I can’t stop looking at them.  My own kids say they will miss it and Rhianna said she’d be buying them for her own family.

In a way, it’s kind of fun to be in a new season and make some new traditions for the 3 of us left here at home.  This is Ben’s last Christmas here at home but all he does is sleep here now anyway…lol.  So this year feels like limbo and maybe over the next year we’ll think about what we want it all to look like from now on.

Ha!  I think I’m seeing that having the girls get married 10 months apart and Ben following this next summer has been a shock to my system.  I am so grateful, though, that God has helped me adjust to changes.  In the earlier years, I was one who could have been very clingy and resistant to change.  I recall that very clearly one day, God spoke to me in a way that changed my perspective…my kids were young and like a thunderbolt I realized that this little time of them here in our home was just a drop in the bucket in their own lives.  They would grow up and move on and build their own lives and their own homes and though we would be part of it…this isn’t “it” for them.  Wow!

Little did I realize that I would need that realization when it all started happening.  It has helped me to see that they need to establish their own traditions and decide what they want their own little family holidays to look like. 

This has been so freeing to me!  Ben has always been the one who is so into tradition, but it will help him build his own.  We’ll be here for them and enjoy the new day to come and fit into it.  At the same time, we need to establish something for ourselves so we aren’t lost and trying to hold on to what was. 

Ahhh, enough of that.  I can’t get online so this is all written on livewriter…have never tried inserting pictures this way so we’ll see how it all works. 

Hope you had a great day yesterday, full of thanks giving and that this season ahead brings you all you hope it will.

I am thankful for food on the table, a roof over our heads, family to love, God who loves us, great friends and a dishwasher to wash the 4 full loads of dishes I did yesterday. 

Tags: my life. family. grateful. holiday