The Key to a Happy Christmas*

*you could probably substitute Birthday, Valentine's Day, Anniversary, etc.

Low Expectations.

That might sound a bit like a Debbie Downer thing to say, but I don't mean it to be. This year I think was the first time that I really didn't have anything I wanted or hoped to get. I had zero expectations of gifts, and was really just grateful to have some money set aside to buy gifts for the kids. And I really enjoyed Christmas, and truly felt like everything I got was a "gift." (Though, I did get a particular item of clothing from my parents-in-law about which I couldn't help but feel a tiny bit put out. It's a sweater that doesn't look like anything I would ever wear and is totally the wrong style for me.)


But, overall it was a great holiday and lots of fun. We got some fun gifts for the family, including the game Qwirkle Cubes, SnapCircuits, a zOrv digital microscope, and two ukuleles! I sewed a new design of monsters for the kids this year and they have really loved those.

One new activity for this year was a get together with my brother and his family and my sister and her family who live in the area. We don't usually get together at Christmas, and it was a lot of fun to do so. We had a fun white elephant gift exchange and just socialized, played games, sang some songs and ate yummy food. I hope that they all enjoyed it enough to want to do it again next year. We usually just see David's family at Christmas, and I felt kind of left out.

One of these days, I'll pull the last couple of months of pictures off my camera and have a mega picture post.