christmas 2014

Holidays are a tricky thing for newlyweds, and something that, 2.5 years later, we still seem to be figuring out. We spent our first Thanksgiving with his family and our first Christmas with mine, and since then, we have swapped each holiday each year. We live relatively close to both families (15 minutes from mine, 6 hours from his), so this works pretty well for us. However, we've discovered we still need to take the time to make holidays our own, too.

Since it was my family's year to have us for Christmas, we spent a lot of time over there during the break. I still have my room at my parents' house, so although we live close, most nights we would just stay over at my parents'. My sister's family was also visiting from Texas, so we wanted to spend as much time with them as possible. But because we spent so much time at my parents' house, Russ and I kind of neglected to figure out when we would have our own celebration.

This led to a sticky situation where I had just assumed we would spend actual Christmas morning with my family and postpone our own Christmas morning, and he assumed we would have our own Christmas on Christmas day, even if it wasn't in the morning. There were tears on both sides (on Christmas morning, no less!) as we tried to figure out what we would do. In the end, with all the craziness that happened on actual Christmas day (us being late to Christmas morning since we were still figuring things out in our room, it taking forever for everyone to finish opening presents even though there weren't supposed to be any, having to make a 1.5 hour drive to my aunt's house in order to arrive at 4pm for Christmas dinner), we did end up postponing our Christmas morning until December 26th.

When we went to bed on our Christmas Eve, I told Russ that whoever woke up first and couldn't wait any longer (and it had to be at a somewhat reasonable hour) could wake the other person. I figured I would be first to wake up (I always wake up first on weekends!), but at about 7am I was surprised to be woken up by an anxious Russ :)

This year we started a new tradition of labeling gifts with something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read. I've seen it on Pinterest as a way to limit how many gifts your kids receive, but we didn't use it that way. We just used it as a way of making our gifts fall into certain categories. I think the reason I like it is because it means you get a variety of gifts (not all things you want, but not all things you need, either), and you can also have a tiny idea of what you're opening before you open it. After all, who wants the last gift they open on Christmas day to be a bag of socks (something you need)? With these labels, you can spread things you want throughout the morning.

We traded off opening presents, and I was pleasantly surprised with everything Russ got me. That sounds bad, but let me explain. First of all, he didn't do any Christmas shopping until a day or two before Christmas. Second of all, he always seems to worry I won't like his gifts, which in turn makes me worry I won't like his gifts. But I have loved everything he's ever gotten me, so idk why either of us worry at all.

Some highlights about what he got me: He managed to wrap a cute t-shirt into a wrapping paper tube, so when I saw the something to wear label, I had no idea what was so small that it could fit inside there! I told him I wanted my own glue gun (because I'm always borrowing my mom's) so he got me that (labeled something you want), and then cleverly labeled glue gun sticks as something you need, since without them, my glue gun was worthless :) For something to read, he got me a giant picture book of beautiful places in the world and told me we could treat it as a travel bucket list :) Boy knows how much I love to see the world!

I really loved how he was able to make store-bought gifts sentimental. He's really good at doing that :)

The last gift I opened from him (and my favorite!) was labeled something you (and I) want. Curious, I opened the box to see this:

The first thing I saw and associated with something we want was the word baby (the gift turned out to be a comfy maternity outfit). If you read my recent post about our not-yet-pregnant situation, you know that we want a baby. But most of the time, I'm a lot more vocal about that desire and about my sadness that the desire hasn't yet been fulfilled. When I opened this gift and looked up at him with tears in my eyes, he said, "I know I don't express it very often, but I just wanted to make sure you knew that this is something I want." And I about died because it was the sweetest thing ever :)

Some highlights about what I got him: For things he wanted, I mostly got him some games and movies he had mentioned liking or wanting. For something to read, I got him a book that I loved and think he might like, too: The Happiness Project. But my favorite gift for him was actually labelled something you need.

The days leading up to Christmas, I had tons of gifts for him under the tree, but nothing that I was really excited about, and I still didn't have anything he needed. Despite the excitement of Christmastime, Russ had been feeling down, so I wanted to think of something that could boost his spirits a bit. I wanted him to feel loved and important and worthwhile.

What I came up with was a gift of "overwhelming love." Just a few short days before Christmas, I sent out an email to all of our immediate family members (parents, siblings, parents-in-law, siblings-in-law) asking them to write a quick note (or something longer if they wanted) for Russ about things they loved and admired about him. I asked them to recall specific interactions that demonstrated these good qualities they saw in him, if possible. Though the gift was supposed to overwhelm Russ with love, I actually felt a little bit overwhelmed with love as I read through 18 letters to Russ, all detailing wonderful things about him. I was overwhelmed with love for Russ for all the reasons that my siblings and parents mentioned, and I was overwhelmed with love for my whole family for their willingness to help and for their love for my amazing husband. It really was such a good experience to work on this gift for Russ.

I compiled all the letters into a booklet (draft one of a booklet, really, since I'm planning to add pictures and bind the book) and I really did title it The Gift of Overwhelming Love. I was planning to save this gift for last and have it be a gift that made him cry because he felt so loved (I really like to find gifts that make him cry happy tears haha), but it didn't end up happening that way.

As I mentioned before, Christmas morning (Dec. 25) was emotional for us. It felt like Christmas was ruined and we both felt like it was our fault but we also both blamed each other for it. There were a lot of tears and we were having a hard time resolving things. In the end, I realized that Russ really did need a gift on Christmas day, and it had to be a significant one, not just a DVD. So the only present that got opened on actual Christmas day was The Gift of Overwhelming Love. He opened it and read each letter to himself, with more and more tears falling with each kind word from the family that loves him so much. He really loved it, and once he finished, there was a lot of hugging and more crying. My eyes seriously hurt all day long because we cried so much that morning, but I was grateful that we were finally having some happy tears--tears that reflected how much we love each other and how grateful we are to have each other.

Despite its rocky start, our Christmas celebrations turned out to be wonderful. The gifts were thoughtful and sentimental and fun, and being together just the two of us was perfect. I always thought that just having two people at Christmas morning would be too few, but our Christmas mornings together have been some of my favorites :) It will be fun and exciting to add children to our celebrations in the upcoming years, but I will always treasure these Christmases we've had together, just the two of us :)

**ashleynicole