Something Much Better...

Sooooo...as with most things in a family of five, this weekend did not go exactly as I had thought it would. There was no cutting down of a Christmas tree, no festive toenail painting, no cocoa drinking, no carol singing {well...maybe some carol singing in the car}, and certainly no adult-only Christmas crafting/tutorial making. But what did occur this weekend, my friends, was something much better.

Our weekend began with a bit of sleeping in {of course} followed by a quick drive to a self-serve pre-cut Christmas tree lot. First of all, let me say how beautiful a thing it is to live somewhere where there can exist a self-serve Christmas tree lot! Say what you will about small, podunk towns...but I just love this one! We had the entire {very tiny} place to ourselves to run around, take our time, play hide-and-seek in the trees, take pictures, and leave as soon as we were done. And while it was not our usual drive out in a field/cut down our own tree/straight from a movie event, this year, for our little family, what we did was something much better.

We did not rush right home and get that tree all dolled up that very day. What we did was something much better. I took my big girls to see The Princess and The Frog {very good, btw} while their daddy and their grandparents put their new matching beds together for an early Christmas surprise. So while our tree waited almost a full 24 hours to be adorned, what happened in that time instead was something much better.

My Sunday morning was not spent crafting and snapping pictures, but what happened instead was much better. We decorated our Christmas tree...the girls still in their jammies, wearing their favorite dress-up items. So, as much as I would have loved some time alone to craft my little heart out, what I did was much better.

We spent the remainder of our weekend watching the girls do their Christmas dances on stage, eating a nice dinner, and going to bed early. We did not attend any big fancy parties, bake tons of yummy cookies, wrap presents, or watch old Christmas movies. But what we did do was much better.

So {so, so, so} often, I get caught up in how I'm not measuring up; how I'm not providing my family with the adequate holiday experience. {Of course, in my mind, the total holiday experience rests on my shoulders which is an entirely different post} But my goodness, with all the holiday imagery and propaganda out there, how could we possibly feel like we're doing enough? But when I take the opportunity to look back at the moments that we are sharing, versus looking at the moments we aren't, I can see very clearly that while we may not be go through the motions of all the greatest holiday movies, what we are doing is much better.