A Hales Family Christmas 2012

How was your Christmas?? Ours was… well… a real family Christmas.

You see I had these grand visions of us baking cookies for Santa and sitting around a fire singing Christmas carols between sips of hot cocoa, you know, similar to the great Christmas we had last year. But alas, I came home from work at around 4pm to my own “red-nose reindeer” and her “Sleepy Santa”.

It appeared that both Lauren and her daddy had come down with a nasty cold, which meant neither of them were in the mood for Christmas Traditions. So we spent most of the evening just relaxing.

However, as our less than silent night wore on, we knew these colds were pretty serious, and that our big Christmas plans (spending time with family and friends) would have to be cancelled. I was heartbroken. No cookies. No carols. No cocoa. Just lots of coughing, crying, and cold medicine.

But, the next morning, both James and I got up determined to make the best of it. Even though it wouldn’t be the Christmas we planned, it would still be Christmas! And even though we didn’t “technically” have our health, we had each other, and a room full of presents downstairs. So after spending a quiet moment together opening stockings, we got Lauren up.

Then things started looking up! You have to love the innocence of children. At age 28 months, Lauren still doesn’t understand Christmas and the concept of presents. So she had trouble understanding why, instead of letting her go upstairs to watch cartoons, we ushered her into the living room… then she saw her scooter!

And she took the milk out of her mouth long enough to look around the room and say “Wow! That’s Ah-May-Zeeing!”, and it was off to the presents she went!

In planning out what to get Lauren this year, we took notice that her favorite cartoon was “Jake and the Neverland Pirates“. So this year, she got her very own pirate treasure chest.

It was filled with all sorts of goodies from her very own “Izzy” doll (shown above), to a special pirate telescope…

… to over 400 gold doubloons!

The whole pirate thing was a huge hit! But that was before we started opening all the other presents.

And we had a blast! Towards the middle, Lauren got a little overwhelmed. We noticed that every time we opened a toy, she would sit on it to try to “protect” it. Then at one point she got up and tried to carry everything to away, which lead to her dropping it all, which lead to a tantrum, which lead to a reminder that she’s our only baby and all of these toys were hers. But other than that, it was great! And by the end of it, James and I were definitely tired of opening boxes.

Then we had a normal family breakfast (eggs, meat, oatmeal, & muffins), and exhausted James went to take a nap on the couch.

While he napped me and Lauren spent some time watching cartoons and playing on the computer.

That pirate sword was definitely the toy of the day! She kept running around yelling “I got my sword!” – Jake-style.

Someone also got very good a sneaking candy canes when Mommy wasn’t looking.

But by the time Daddy woke up, and we sat down to our Christmas feast…

… we were all feeling a lot better. And we spent the afternoon running…

… jumping…

… and playing with Daddy.

So I guess all’s well that ends well, and everybody’s looking a lot better now.

Also, we have to give a very special shout out to the Brown family and their true expression of Friendship on Christmas day. Because a good friend will invite you to Christmas dinner, but a great friend will send you a plate when you’re too sick to make it. So Thank Ya’ll for being great friends.

We hope your Christmas was a great one too and we send our love for the holiday season!

Tagged as: Family, Holidays