White Christmas

Nine hours is better than 13 hours. At least when it comes to being in the car. So in that respect, the ride home from our NY trip was way better than our trip up. But Christmas with family is 13 times better than Christmas without. Thus, the trip was worth it.

Since our trips, especially as a family, are fewer we decided to make it a long week in NY for the holiday. We had plenty of time to just . . . be. There was little running around from house to house. I had enough of that from my younger years. And it's no fun with kids anyway so we stayed put. We even snuck in a night out with Matt, Joey and some old friends and a quick drink in Nyack.

Christmas Eve has always been my favorite night. We used to go out to dinner with Dad and Jo and brothers but there are way too many of us now. And kids . . .  well, you know. So we stay in. We eat. A lot. And we watch The Muppet Family Christmas. It was nice. But I have to say - it's changed. We have the old traditions but new ones are edging in. Those kids. . . . ! Binkers, our 'elf', found his way to NY. He "ka-poofed" there you know. He hid all over the house. We wrote him and Santa notes (and 'Santa' wrote one back! Thanks Uncle Tim!). And in the morning, instead of hanging out and taking our time as we had over the past few years as us kids have gotten older, we are once again back to rising early and waking everyone else up so we can hurry up and open gifts. With Nathan being old enough for the excitement, we have come full circle. Although Tim and Jen weren't there for our usual Christmas Eve festivities, they made sure to be there for the morning ones. And really, that was the fun part; To see the Nathan marvel at all the presents (so many of which were for him) and Benny to have a ball in all that wrapping paper. Although we don't have the same surprises as when we were young (when we came home from dinner the gifts would all magically be there under the tree and this time I actually saw Joanne go up and down the stairs making the "delivery") the small touches were still there. Small gifts sat on the table at dinner and breakfast, Secret Santa between the siblings (in person instead of Skype!) and even the Muppets (Ok, I missed this showing but Benny was sleeping so I had a small opportunity to shower.) I don't know how many Christmas's we will have at my Dads house, with the siblings, in NY. There are so many variables as our families grow and we slowly move apart. Who knows when we will all be together again.

For Christmas Day, after our morning with one side, we went to the Martins. Mom and Ed were there too and it was nice to celebrate with my fake in-laws. They may as well be a real part of our family though as we have known them for so long. Nathan and Lily loved running around some more - they really seemed to enjoy each others company this time around.

Wednesday we went down to Greg and Danielle's in NJ for more family time and pizza. More kid time! It would be nice to have had a little more down time; for me watching or holding Benny is exhausting and never-ending. He has been super whinny lately - due to teething, mommy-separation or both, I don't know. But I got some great shots of those kids playing. It started to snow and we had to cut our time short. Unfortunately we still waited too long. Our ride home was long and dangerous. Two hours instead of 30 minutes  The up side - the boys slept most of the way. Thank goodness!

The other upside - SNOW! It snowed Christmas Eve but that was a mere covering compared to the couple of inches we had that night. Aside from the presents, and playing with Lily, Nathan really loved playing in the snow. Leo, Uncle Joey and Nathan played for over an hour making huge snow people. It rained overnight and ruined what could have been another day of snow play. But it was special to get as much as we did this time around. It's almost enough to make us come back every year - if only snow on Christmas was a guarantee.

The rest of the week we played with our new toys and just hung out at Pops house. We went by the river to play and enjoyed a quick visit with Nanni and Aunt Ruth. Also, we adults had to mentally prepare for the ride home. Leo and I were stressed about it. We heard other reports that Friday traffic was bad and Saturday more snow was supposed to fall. The solution was a 4:20am wakeup. It was not fun but the result was the shorter drive and being home by 3p. A worthy sacrifice.

This weekend we had another mini Christmas (in addition to the one we had just before we left for NY too with Gigi and Grandpa!). Grandpa Truck, Babci, Kerri and kids came over for a while to play, exchange gifts and have dinner. I'm so thankful Nathan has his cousins. He just loves them. And so another mini-Christmas has been wrapped up. Today is a bit of a work day but a light one I think since New Years Eve is also upon us. No parties for us parents this year. We will settle for some good old-fashioned family time on the couch waiting for the ball to drop. I hope I can stay awake that long after such a busy week.