Decembers Documented

I arrived home this morning around 1 AM, seriously telling myself I am now too old for this. When we moved away from the Houston nucleus of my family in 1997, we settled into a trajectory of Christmases in our own home, and family Christmas trips that I would now make across the state as the solo adult, carrying all of the responsibility of travel, and shepherding two small children, as we traversed "over the river and through the woods" to whomever's house held family Christmas that year. 

So, for 17 years now, I have worked to initiate the family Christmas gathering, managed it around my own working schedule, and shouldered all of the burden of taking the boys to be with my family at Christmas time. It has never been easy. Not ever. But it is something I have always been willing to do because my boys, like their mom, love family gatherings, and because it is important to me to be with family at Christmas. I made sacrifices as needed over the years to be ready for Christmas a week early, and get us to wherever Christmas was held, with all our Christmas regalia packed up and loaded into my vehicle.

Every year a different collection of family members are present, and each year is a very unique and precious memory. Over the years, we have grown from my childhood family of six to a family that now contains five family branches: my parents, and the family branches of me and my three siblings. My oldest sister married and had four children. Her children are all married now, and she has seven grandchildren. Her family totals 17. My older sister married, had three children and adopted four children. One of her children is married and my sister has three grandchildren. Her family totals 13. My family of four is the smallest. My brother is married and has three children. 

So, together, we total 41. 41. There has never been a time when we have all been together at the same time. One of my nephews serves in the Air Force and has been stationed overseas. He is now stationed in the U.S., but I now have a niece teaching English in Thailand. Other then the overseas stints, and my boys presently going to college out of state, we have all always lived in Texas. But getting together is hard. Schedules are crazy busy. The idea of everyone being present is both mind boggling and frightening to this introvert. I do best when there are less than 20 of us together. Not to say I wouldn't love it if we were all together, but I am okay with it being smaller crowds.

Even though I have had to make the trip by myself every year, leaving Steve behind to work his retail magic, even though I don't always do well around lots of children, even though noise is not my thing, even though I crave quiet and my own hearth, I have committed to being present for all of these years for family Christmas. It has sure been something to watch it evolve over all of these years. Admittedly, my sisters and I are photo hounds, so these annual December gatherings are duly documented and in the memory books to be sure.  

The first wave of change, of course, occurred when we (my siblings and I) all married and had our own children. It has been a joy to watch my nephews and nieces grow up, and to see my children and my siblings' children create their cousin bond. Seeing my nieces and nephews married now and parenting their own children is another layer in the generational circle. As I sit and watch them with what I call my greats (my great-nephews and great-nieces, of which I have ten) I am taken back to my own childhood and  memories of my aunts and uncles, and I recall the interactions I had with them and how special they were to me. It does not seem so very long ago that we were gathering at my Aunt Ernestine's house for family Bingo, or having a summer reunion at my Aunt Jeanine's lake house or my Uncle Jimmy Ed's home. I treasure those times, and pray that my nieces and nephews and sons do as well.

2014 brought another fundamental shift. My own sons are in college now and the traditional weekend before Christmas was no longer an option when considering their schedules. All these years, we have worked around my older sister traveling to Kansas on the day after Christmas. She began that annual trek early in their marriage and has never varied in her travel plans. All these years, I have worked to travel home to family Christmas on the weekend that worked for her family, the weekend before Christmas. And this year was the end of that road, for now. In my head I understand that perhaps things can't continue. In my heart I am sad that this year it was just me and my sons, my parents, and my oldest sister and her children gathering on the weekend that worked for me and the boys, the weekend after Christmas. Family Christmas was missing a big branch. But, it was family Christmas nonetheless. I imagine family dynamics will continue only to shift as we all continue to age and schedules continue to change.

But, in my mind I will remember the early days, when all of the kids were school age and younger, when we were all together, when the schedules were simple and the days were jumbled together in a chaotic mix of presents, pajamas, and peanut butter fudge. Every family Christmas has been special, but I think of those early, simpler years with fondness, mainly because we were all together. They seem now, as I look back, to be especially Merry and Bright.

Merry & Bright ~ Family Christmas ~ December 2008

Sketch Credit: Scrapbook Generation >> They are masterful at creating Simple Stories (SS) basic "page recipes". When you have lots of family photos, these SS basic SG sketches work so well with the SS grid-like elements. This page came together very fast and is not complex. But, there is so much going on in the photos it works well that way for me.

Paper: Simple Stories

Title: Heidi Swapp chipboard ABC's

Unwrapping the Smiles

I know that there are so many facets to the Christmas holiday season. It seems every year that the collision from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas occurs at an ever increasing pace. To Do lists get drafted and edited and added to, and eventually as checked off as they are going to become. Somehow our smart phones are supposed to make getting it all done faster. I can't say that this is necessarily true, but I do know that the 25th of December comes steadfastly and - for now - the Christmas stores close down on the 24th and we live at the end of that eve with what got done...and what didn't.

I always love Christmas Eve. Having a retail hubby, who works so many days and so many long hours in those days, brings a different flavor to our holiday season. We muster through the month, Steve helping me with what he can, when he can. The master-minding of the whole event is solely on my shoulders and I do revel in it. Keeping up with the budget, the gifts to get against the budget, the evening out of it all, the element to create a few great surprises under the tree, the wrapping, the cards, the baking, the meal menus, the trip to see the extended family, and the photographing and remembering - it all falls squarely on me.

We pare down to eliminate the things that don't need to be done, make our way through December, end of workday by end of workday, parse out the beloved weekend time for the big projects and must do's in that moment, and we battle to carve out as many quiet together moments at home, out of the cold and chaos, as we can manage. After all of these retail years, we have very nearly perfected knowing how much we can manage to get done, and, more importantly, we have learned to enjoy the life we have in December as much as humanly possible.

But, come Christmas Eve, I know the end is near. I know that soon our life will return to normal and in between the pre-December 25 shopping frenzy and the post-season retail wrap-up, we get nearly 48 hours of unhurried time. When I get the text, "Leaving the store. See you soon. Do you need anything?" my heart skips a beat and I know that Steve will soon be pulling into the driveway, bringing Christmas home. I always tell him, "It isn't Christmas Eve until you're here with us."

The whole month unfolds into embracing those few hours between him coming home on the 24th and him going back in on the 26th. All of the hard work at that point is deemed "worth it" and the presents under the tree, the fire blazing, the boys home and the house full of the four of us truly is the most wonderful time of the year. 

As the boys have aged, it has added even more to the holiday - their opinions on everything we do, their shopping for their own gifts without any assistance, their being awake longer on Christmas Eve, their remembering of years' past and their excitement over their favorites. Invariably there is some last minute gift wrapping going on by the men in my house. I secretly love to watch them scurry to get it done. But at some point, it all gets done and we settle into the holiday. We have our traditions that I love -  Christmas Eve candlelight service, Mexican food for dinner, the boys' present exchange, the watching of a beloved movie. 

We finally eek out of Christmas Eve all that we can and we turn in to bed, pacing out the time so as to glean as much joy out of the holiday as we can harvest. Christmas morning dawns and we live now in the fullness of phase where the boys may sleep in as long as we allow. Andrew is my early riser and Philip is my night owl who struggles to fall asleep and, accordingly, wake up before noon. He's enough of a kid at heart, though, to make an exception on Christmas morning, being a good sport to wake up when we have kept Andrew at bay as long as we deem acceptable. 

Christmas morning holds its own traditions, too - the gathering of the coffee and camera, the stockings, the usual breakfast foods, and then, finally, the tree. I have recognized as I age that there are some boxes that, by the time they come out from under the tree, I am no longer able to recall their contents. It's somewhat serendipitous to also be surprised as the wrapping paper comes off and the box opened.

Camera ever ready at my side, I am poised and prepared to capture the snapshots of the day - angling to get the best shots of the faces that I love. See, while they are unwrapping the presents, I am unwrapping the smiles. I love these photos that represent the pure delight on their faces at the unexpected gifts, the little surprises I found throughout my month long shopping endeavors, the secret presents that I grabbed to make the morning moments feel a little bit more special.

To me, the most wonderful time of the year is when you are all together, celebrating the Presence of the Christ child, the presents of the day, and the richness of the traditions you have shared over time and in different spaces to treasure those two ideals. No matter how old the boys get, or where we may end up living, I know that for me, the greatest gift my family can give me every year is to allow me to sit back, watch them delight in the holiday, and capture all the times spent unwrapping the smiles. 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year ~ Christmas Morning ~ December 2010

Sketch Credit: Scrapbook Generation http://scrapbookgeneration.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=213

Paper: October Afternoon, Echo Park

Title: Silhouette Cut File by Lori Whitlock