We are what seems like the only people who are staying home these days so I feel like I need to make up for the festivities we’re missing out on. We usually kick off the Christmas season with our family Christmas cards the first week of December, however, because everything is so hard to book or is shut down, I couldn’t do the fancy card I was looking forward to doing this year.
I’ve always seen the matching family pajama pictures flooding social media each year and figured, I guess what better time to jump on the bandwagon than this year. Cayden has been into the animated version of The Grinch ever since we found it on Netflix back in November. I kid you not, I have watched that movie every single day, at least twice a day for a whole month straight. He now knows every single line. And his favorite part is rapping along with Tyler the Creator everytime the theme song comes on.
If you know me as a mom, you know that everything I do is based on Cayden. Since he is obsessed with The Grinch, it was easy to pick out the jammies to match. He was so excited when the package came in and found out that mommy and daddy were matching with him. He kept telling his dad he needed to put his “Grinch jammies” on for pictures everyday.
To go along with our jammies, I wanted a Grinch-themed tree that Cayden would enjoy. Steven’s mom has someone come to put up her tree every year and I was almost tempted to do the same because lord knows time is just something I do not have enough of. However, growing up, that was a part of the Christmas traditions. My mom, my brother, and I would all help put the tree up, string the lights, put on the ornaments, while listening to Christmas music in the background and snacking on all types of treats.
Now that Cayden is three years old, he’s wanting to be more hands-on so this was the first year we did a tree together, the same way I did with my mom when I was little. We went to the store to pick out ornaments that would match some Grinch colors. When we got home, I laid out some snacks for us, put on some holiday tunes, and we danced while we put the ornaments up. He was so excited and so proud to say that he did it. He would mention it everytime our family members Facetimed us.
Another addition we added to our traditions this year was to make gingerbread houses. I wasn’t too sure if he would be old enough to actually enjoy it, but surprisingly enough he did. He helped hold the walls up with frosting and put the gumdrops and sprinkles all over the houses, and the counter. I swear there was more frosting and sprinkles on the countertop than there was on the actual gingerbread houses.
From the beginning of December, we have had movie night in our little theatre in the basement. We get a big bowl of Topsy’s popcorn, make some hot chocolate, and just cuddle and watch Christmas movies together as a family. It makes me happy to see that he enjoys the same movies I did when he was a kid.
Looking back, the Christmas magic that I felt as a kid was due to my mom pulling all the stops for us. It wasn’t the presents or Santa Claus, my brother and I never grew up believing in Santa. As much as our mom tried to make us believe in him, we wanted to give her all the credit for filling our stockings up and for affording all the gifts under the tree as a single mom. For us, it was the activities that my mom would do for us. Now I find myself wanting to do the same for Cayden. Covid may be cancelling some things but as far as we’re concerned, Christmas hasn’t been bigger than this year in the Burk’s home.
Merry Christmas from our little family to yours!
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