Savoring the Last of My Christmas and My Chocolate

I really think this was one of our best Christmases. Such fun, such laughs, such great times together. For me the best present is always having all my kiddos under one roof enjoying each other's company. That's always the best gift.

Christmas has wound down, the Christmas decorations have been boxed up. Good old 2009 has wound down as well. This is always a melancholy time: the packing away of the Christmas magic and hoping I did a good job to make it special and memorable for my kids the way my mom always did.

Then the whole new year thing, which makes me look back--well, literally because as I put up my new calendar for the year, I look at all the pages on my old one: appointments, work schedules, play dates, birthday parties, short trips, awards, school performances, and I remember what the first of last year was like and it seems like so long ago but not that long ago all at the same time. Weird.

And now our Christmas break is almost over. Only two more days and it's back to work and school. I have so cherished this time. With my school job, I get the same vacation as the kids, and my restaurant job has only worked me 3 days over the last 2 weeks. I haven't had two days off in a row in a very long time and then I get all this! Wow!

The girls and I have totally gotten off schedule. We are such night-owls and sleeper-inners now. That first week back is going to kick our collective butts!

I am proud of myself for getting a lot accomplished with my time off. I have been going through all the boxes that I have been storing (and moving) for the last, gosh, must be 18 years. I have boxes and boxes filled with the kids' school keepsakes. Entire boxes for one grade and ONE kid. Goodness, every lunch menu, spelling test, doodle, worksheet, you name it. I have weeded through each box and kept the treasures and tossed the rest, and I've been making myself be brutal.

My goal is that each kid will have a plastic storage box of special toys, baby blankets, first outfits, etc, a scrapbook of school artwork, and a binder with awards, special cards, stories they had written and other fun things (not counting their photo scrapbooks, but that's a whole other project!) and over the last 2 weeks I've come very close to achieving this goal. (Hearty pat on the back.)

I'm almost at the end of the box of chocolates that my son had given me for Christmas and it reminds me of this time of year...the days (and chocolates) were plentiful at the beginning of our break, we had everything to anticipate and look forward to and it seemed like we had so much, and now my box is almost empty and my days off with my girls are almost gone too. The chocolates taste just as delicious if not more so...I slowly savor each one, as it is with my days, I try to savor that time that I don't have work and can just be at home with my kids. Sweet, indeed.