51/52 {christmas love}

Amidst the busyness and shopping and food preparation and family dynamics, there is a certain magic about Christmas time. When all the presents are wrapped and labelled and under the tree, I can’t help but think about all the Christmases of my childhood and get a little buzz anticipating how excited my boys will be as they wake up on Christmas day.

Two days before we celebrated Christmas, I had the honour of accompanying my beautiful youngest sister and her husband as they welcomed their first child into the world. To say it was pretty amazing to play even a small part in such an incredible moment would be an understatement. I am very proud of the new parents, who made a formidable team throughout the birth, and was very excited to meet their new daughter, and the 20th grandchild for our family, Polly Anne Louise. Such a special Christmas delivery.

I love Christmas, but I am also aware of how tired we are this time of year and the need to keep things simple. We decorated our real Christmas tree with a collection of decorations made and gathered over the years, and topped it off with a star that Sam and I made out of a Huggies nappy box when he was little. I think I managed to write on two Christmas cards. We went to Mass on Christmas Eve, but spent most of our time outside with restless, noisy children, and drove the long way home to see some sparkly Christmas lights along the way. We enjoyed time with all sides of the family, and ate and drank far more than we ever needed to. We delighted in the giggles when the boys found ‘Matt’, our Elf on the Shelf, in a new spot each morning, and made up stories for the days he was obviously far too tired to have moved. We wrapped and opened and played with so many presents. We may feel oh so tired after at least a week of festivities, but we are blessed in so many ways.

Just for a bit of fun, we took a time-lapse video of us on the iPhone 6 as we were putting up the decorations on our Christmas tree…

Wherever you are, whoever you celebrated with, we hope you had a beautiful Christmas, filled with love, laughter and a little magic. An extra special blessing is going out to those who aren’t able to celebrate with their loved ones this year. Sending so much love to you all from the Loves xx

sam: Some days you seem so grown up, but I love witnessing your joy and innocence as you embrace the Christmas celebrations. You were so excited about opening presents with your cousins on Christmas morning, and loved ‘playing Santa’ at your other Grandma’s house and handing out the gifts to everyone. You patiently waited as Daddy constructed your new desk and there was a definite twinkle in your eye as you proudly set it up just the way you wanted it. 

charlie: You discovered some forgotten toys in our bag of Christmas decorations and decided a ‘Christmas helicopter’, complete with sound effects, was in order. I loved seeing your face and jumps for joy as you discovered that Daddy and I had given you the long-wished-for Ninja Turtle lair on Christmas morning and, of course, nothing else was allowed to happen until it was successfully assembled. 

nicholas:  While you may not have had the same anticipation as your big brothers in the leadup to Christmas, you certainly enjoyed the opening of presents and the celebrating of festivities with the best of them. You happily chatted with Santa at the shops, carefully investigated the Christmas tree and knew exactly how to unwrap all those special gifts. I loved watching your little legs move as you quickly mastered your new three-wheel Wishbone bike.