#ignoringreality

J and I decided years ago to celebrate the Winter’s Solstice rather than Christmas within our house (we still celebrate Christmas with our extended family). Yesterday was Solstice and we spent it with friends who have a 7 week old, we were going to go today but an impending ice storm had us revise our plans. So, today we exchanged gifts.

Smalls did a great job with the gift wrap, she grabbed the piece we started and pulled! Of course then the paper headed to her mouth, but we quickly put in her hands the toy or book she just opened. 

On Christmas Eve we’ll go to J’s mom’s house, on Christmas we’ll go to my Dad’s house and see my brother and new niece.

Holidays are hectic in the best of times. Adding a little one makes traveling take longer to prepare for and can be tough on them too. Smalls does pretty well in the car so it is mostly just making sure we’ve brought everything. 

Also added to this is the fostering aspect. Mom and Dad have visits these couple weeks and I can only imagine how hard it is for them to miss Smalls’ first Christmas. We’ve done some small things to make it a bit easier - we made some handprint decorations and painted them, daycare made some holiday crafts that we’ll pass on too, and we’ve been sharing pictures for a few weeks now.