Good-bye Holidays, Hello New Year!

It's so hard to believe that the holidays are over and it's now back to the grind. For our house the holidays officially came to an end last Friday as I dragged our 8 ft Christmas tree to the curb for Saturday mornings garbage pick up. The last of the ornaments and decorations were put away and all signs of the holidays gone. It's bitter sweet. The house seems so bare without the holiday spirit and spruce, yet at the same time it looks so clean and clutter free.

                                        

This year's Christmas season was a week shorter with Thanksgiving being so late. We had 6 less days to prepare and shop! It all seemed to come and go so fast. I'll admit I got off pretty easy this year, not hosting Thanksgiving or Christmas at our house this year. I did host the Mister's work holiday party with about 30 of his co-workers as well as the PMC holiday party and cookie exchange. Both were a lot of fun, but only 5 days apart, so needless to say, I hit the ground running this season.

Shopping this year wasn't too stressful this year. I do 90% of my shopping on Amazon and other online retailers. It's so easy and so much fun having packages arrive daily my door daily. O is going to be 3 in 1 week. The last 2 years we have bought very little for him, basically just stocking stuffers. Reason being is he needs nothing and gets so much from his grandparents and aunts and uncles. This year we actually bought O a big gift, technically from Santa. O got his very own bounce house! It's been so much fun for all of us.

                                        

As a parent, it's hard not to go crazy buying gifts. Truth be told though, he just doesn't need to get 75 gifts on Christmas. He just doesn't understand or appreciate the concept. I know it's the age, but I am trying to instill and teach gratitude. I want him to understand that he can't have everything he wants  and that it's important to work hard for the things we want. To him it looks like presents just appear under a tree or I just walk into Target, put a bunch of stuff in our cart, walk up to the register and hand over a plastic card to get all of these wonderful things. When we know in reality, my husband works hard, long and stressful hours so I can stay home with the boys and buy nice things for our family. Call me Scrooge, but as a parent, I am determined to teach these lessons at a young age.

Two very exciting additions this Christmas was our little guy P and our Elf on the Shelf Luigi. P celebrated his first Christmas. He had so much fun playing with and eating wrapping paper! Like O, he also made out like a bandit with lots of fun new toys from family. He loves playing in the bounce house with O too!  Luigi, where do I even begin. He was such a fun addition to our Christmas season. A bit mischievous, but we loved having him. He did a great job keeping O in check. From time to time O reminded me that he was there to watch me & daddy as well. We made sure to be on our best behavior also.

                                       

Believe it or not, this was the first year in 3 years that I went out ( just to a friends house) to celebrate New Year's and I even managed to stay awake till midnight! So proud of myself. Crazy to think that 2013 is over. It had its ups and downs with the birth of our beautiful little guy and the unexpected loss of our Pop. Over the last few weeks, the Mister and I have been reflecting and tearing our goals for 2014. I gave up resolutions a few years back. In my opinion, they set you up to fail. Now, I set 2-4 goals each year to work on. I find this less stressful and more successful. I even took it a step further and chose a theme for this year. I was throwing a few ideas around for this when the Mister suggested, "be present." And so here I go,  to " being present in 2014!" (I'll post more later about my goals & theme). Wishing you & yours great health, never ending love & much success!