Monday, December 30, 2013

2013 Christmas Season Lookback


My heart has been so full this Christmas season. With Jack old enough to understand a little of celebrating the Savior come to set his people free, our sweet baby girl's first Christmas, plus extra days to spend stuck at home together with the great ice storm, it's been a wonderful Christmas to write into the Gentry family annals.

The second week of December, we met up with my family in Dallas for dinner at Mi Cocina in Highland Park Village and a carriage ride through the Highland Park Christmas lights. It was a chilly night, but we bundled up tight and had just a wonderful time snuggled in together. If you've never done the Highland Park lights before, they are stunning, especially when you start off from HPV, which is stunning in its simple but complex, white light wrapped trees.

I hope I can always remember what Jack sounded like this year each time he said, "Look at all the Christmas lights!" like he had never seen them before. The wonder of a child.


Jack's class at preschool was old enough to participate in their Christmas program. It was a simple but sweet presentation of the nativity, complete with angels, Mary, Joseph, a baby doll Jesus, the shepherds, some kings, and a whole flock of 2 year olds sheep.


As a family, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights one evening the week before Christmas, which is something Mr. G and I always did before we had kids, usually on a special Christmas date night where we open our gifts together before we left to be with one of our families for Christmas eve. Now it's our desire to be home on Christmas eve/morning with our little immediate family, so our Christmas date will take on a new look. This year it was a weekend away to celebrate the anniversary of our first date a decade ago.


My sweeties in their Christmas pj's.

The internet brings us so many fun and unique ideas for children's activities during the Christmas season that it can be a little daunting and/or make you feel like a slacker for not having some amazing pinnable experiences. Don't let yourself fall into the lie that your holidays have to be something out of a magazine. Family traditions are important, and some of the best traditions (like tucking into carseats for a late drive around the neighborhood Christmas lights) aren't pinnable ones. I think this can apply to any holiday, even the Hallmark ones.

I, for one, am praying on behalf of moms everywhere that no one markets a Cupid on a Shelf in 2014.

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