Christmas

Christmas was very strange this year. It feels like it just came out of nowhere. I was busy preparing for Christmas for much of November and all of December when I wasn't planning for Caleb's birthday party. (Still can't believe he is five!) Anyway, Caleb really didn't have a very good idea of what he wanted this year so we got what we knew he wanted and then we just sort of picked up a couple of other things that we thought he would like. I felt bad because I became aware of something that he would like much more on Christmas Eve but there was no way for me to get anything that late. I just felt like I didn't want this Christmas to be terrible for him right after his brother leaving us. I didn't want him to open things and not like them. I know, ridiculous! We make a big deal in our house about what Christmas really means so I know it was silly for me to think about something as meaningless as gifts, but you know, you always want to do the best for your children. Well, we woke Caleb up Christmas morning like usual (he never wakes up on his own on Christmas, I think he may start to in the next year or two) and he was so excited. He loved everything and we had a wonderful morning together. Caleb is so sweet...as soon as he saw his stocking, he looked back at Levi's still hanging from the fireplace and he said "Levi didn't get anything". He then proceeded to share half of his stocking stuff with Levi. Such a sweet boy. We went to church for the Christmas service and we went to the cemetery for a little while and then we went to my mom's house. We also went to Michael's mom's later that night. We had spent Christmas Eve with Michael's dad. It was very hard to do the things that we normally do every year with our families. We didn't even want to go do anything with the rest of the family but we managed to drag each other out to spend time with everyone because we didn't want Caleb to miss out. We could not take away his Christmas traditions just because it is difficult for us. It is so hard because no one really understands just how painful the day was for us. People didn't respect our wishes while we were out and that was very frustrating, but we dealt with everything and tried to make the best of it. Overall, I can say that the day was ok. Caleb enjoyed everything and that is really what makes everything worth it to us.