Every year Dave & I stay up late on Christmas Eve, and I mean 5 am kind of late, and wrap presents, drink wine, babble away.  This year we’ve been a little late on the uptake.  I’d grabbed a couple things off Amazon during Black Friday Week (can you say $34.99 kindles!?!?), and that was all she wrote. After that people started sniffling, sneezing, coughing and laying around in useless piles of poor, sick puppies that needed lots of love and attention.

Last week Saturday Dave and I were finally both well enough at the same time to get out of the house for the evening.  We lasted 2.5 hours and got everything done that needed to be done. No more. No less.  All of which boils down to, a very short Christmas Eve tradition.  Dave & I wrapped the last present before 2:00 am and happily dropped into bed tired but not exhausted. I worried briefly if the kids would feel loved, it was the first year all the present were actually under the tree and not oozing out taking over half the living room floor, but then I told myself, they are loved, the stuff doesn’t  matter.

Dave & I slept in till 9:30 am on Christmas morning. I woke up feeling refreshed, barely a scratch in my throat, and so well-rested. It was a Christmas miracle!  Later Dane told me he had gotten up early, checked on us, thought we “looked happy sleeping”, and crawled into bed with Tess and fell right back asleep himself. I have to say, that was the best Christmas present ever.

All three kids happily joined us in the living room, Dave made coffee, and present unwrapping went even faster than present wrapping.   Dane burst with happiness at every Best. Present. Ever. Tess was all smiles, all morning. And even Cole couldn’t stop grinning and even let me take pictures.  We may have had less under the tree this year, but it was the happiest Christmas.

I even spent a little time going through photo’s, playing with photoshop, and managed a fabulous page (or 10).  I’ve been drooling over the layouts in our gallery made with Jen Maddocks templates. I think it’s the quilter in me that is so drawn to this style.  Each time I see one, I think: “That’s my favorite!” and then I see the next one, and that’s my favorite.

Last night I finally grabbed my very favorite set: Artisan Favorite Templates 7, and made my own layout (I also used Jen’s Soar {Papers}) and I fell in love with scrapbooking all over again.

christmas-2015