Why I love Christmas

Tim Minchin wrote a song about why he loves Christmas, and it hits home for me.

The meaning of Christmas has changed for me over the last few years. I used to be a Christian and had the traditional views of the holiday. I loved Christmas as a way to celebrate my religion and it’s savior. The Christmas Eve candlelight services at our church in Dallas were my favorite.

My first Christmas as a non-Christian (before I had fully transitioned to Atheism) was difficult. I was in a difficult time, I guess, but Christmas was particularly hard that year. I wondered what the point was.

Since then, I have come to love Christmas as much as before.

I have always loved tradition. I don’t know if it’s because I was in Fiddler On The Roof when I was in 8th grade, or if it’s because my family loves tradition. We have Christmas traditions in my family (hot chocolate and orange rolls!), and we’ve brought them to our family as much as possible (the kids didn’t drink nearly as much hot chocolate, yesterday, as I thought they would). Orange rolls aren’t available so we’ve made homemade sweets. Cinnamon rolls, or blueberry cream cheese puffs, or something. John had traditions growing up too that we’ve started doing. Our kids get a pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve to wear that night. 

And, come on. My whole life, the best part of Christmas has been the presents! With three boys I get to give a lot of presents! I love to give as much as I love to receive. Except to John, I always have a fear I’m getting the wrong thing. Despite being together over 16 years, I still suck at getting him the right things.

I digress.

Yesterday I enjoyed Christmas the most I have in years. The children loved their presents. John made a super delicious breakfast feast with the aforementioned puffs, homemade biscuits and gravy (no packets in this family), and scrambled eggs. We spent the day watching movies, playing with new toys (including my run in my new running clothes), swimming in our pool, and on a Christmas drive (which was supposed to be easy and stress free but was actually stressful. Manila never ceases to surprise). Lunch and dinner were leftovers, sandwiches, or snacks and the children (and possibly adults) indulged in a ton of sugar throughout the day.

The kids went to bed with a new toy and were perfectly happy and tired from their big day of playing. We hung out for a few hours and I went to bed happy. I was so happy yesterday.

I love Christmas and I’m so happy to pass on the traditions from our families to our kids.

Merry Christmas, from the Roy Family!

Christmas Day 2009

Oh what a day! The day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. Our first Foreign Service Christmas, and certainly a white Christmas.

The boys let me sleep until 8 o'clock, yay! After being up for 2 1/2 hours in the middle of the night the sleep felt really good.

We made ourselves presentable and prepared for our friend to come over (the same friend who was over on Christmas Eve, she's a very good friend) and she got here at 8:30. John and I were in the middle of preparing for breakfast and then Malachi and I started the arduous task of passing out the presents.



Us with our huge pile of presents, almost all presents sent to us in the mail made it on time. Plus John and I might have gone a little overboard this year.



Opening presents took a long time. We let Malachi go first (Lesson #1. I don't think we'll do that again because he then wanted to play with all of his stuff and needed us to assist in opening and putting batteries in and what not, and we just wanted to open our own presents) and that was not quick. I finally had to "police" how much time he took with each gift, plus he had a ton. During the gift opening John was making his monkey bread (so tasty!) and he had to get up shortly after we started opening our gifts to check it - and then had to keep on getting up. After his monkey bread came out, I had to assemble and put in my quiches. So unfortunately the time for John and I to open our gifts was rushed, and a little more stressful than it should've been (Lesson #2. Leave time enough for gift opening to be free of stress and not rushed).

Our friend got her ketchup as well as a scarf from Guatemala. She was nice enough to keep Malachi occupied with his new Animal Encyclopedia while John cooked.



After a delicious breakfast of quiche, monkey bread, and fresh fruit, we played with our gifts. At the same time that our friend had to leave, John, Malachi and I needed to get ready for Puerto Rican Christmas. We drove over to the Maryland side of the city and spent the rest of the day with some good friends (who grew up in Puerto Rico). They had a boy about five months ago (I think, I'm horrible at remembering when he was born), and Malachi loves going to their house to watch their big TV and see their baby. I also learned that he also really loves our friends, especially the husband, who got a running start to a hug around the leg. We enjoyed a really delicious dinner that they prepared for us, and we played a gift exchange game with their neighbor. I got a frame for three pictures, Malachi got his very own playing card set that's just like Mommy and Daddy's but all his own, and John got a pair of earings. That's right...earings. He was gracious enough to give them to me.

We drove home that night during a rain storm. Earlier in the week I had heard that it was going to be a wintry mix, and I was really afraid we were going to hit some icy patches, but it was warmer than I thought it would be and it was just wet. Not a hard ride home (except for the difficutly of seeing because of the shiny-ness of the road). Malachi went to bed almost on time, and John and I made it to bed early. We were all pretty exhausted. I'm very sad that I didn't take pictures at our friend's house. I had the camera - I was just lazy.

Over all, we had a great couple of days. My fears that it wouldn't feel like Christmas were proved wrong. We spent the days with some great friends, ate some good food, and really enjoyed our first Foreign Service Christmas.

So much to write, So little desire to write it.

It's been a while since I've blogged. I just haven't felt like it.

So last weekend we had a killer storm here (literally). After 11 straight hours of snow fall, we ended up with over 16" of snow. It was the record for December snow fall and the 8th deepest snow the area has recorded. I have had mixed feelings about it. I really hate snow. I hate winter actually. The snow and cold just drive me nuts. People who like it can have it - I don't want it, and don't get me started on dumb winter drivers!! But Malachi LOVES the snow. And it's so much fun to watch him play in it.



Therefore, Malachi and I went out to play during the storm on Saturday. It didn't last very long because Malachi only has cloth gloves (we looked for better ones and couldn't find any). Sunday we went out again with John. The sun was setting, so we'd had some meltage on the car and the snow was able to become heavier and packable. There were some snow balls thrown, Malachi played at the playground in is gear (weird, right?!), and he enjoyed just sitting in the snow (which made him a pretty easy target for daddy.









Sunday night we found out that all government offices in this area were closed on Monday so yesterday John had the day off. What a treat! That means that today and tomorrow are his only work days this week - yay! We did some shopping with a friend and then last night went to see Avatar. We had a pretty good time with our friends.

We're done shopping for Malachi, John and Malachi are out right now getting Malachi's present for me, and mommy is done shopping for daddy. The present to daddy from Malachi is in the mail. I don't expect to get it before Christmas but it shouldn't be too long after.

Out of our families, the only person getting their presents on time is my mom. Everyone else is going to have to wait - sorry.