A partridge in a pear tree and other Christmas fun (7 Quick Takes)

Merry Christmas! The Christmas season is just beginning, so we have plenty of fun still ahead. Here are a few highlights of our Christmas celebration so far.

~1~

It doesn’t feel like a holiday here until I make a themed veggie tray. We weren’t hungry for one on the first day of Christmas, so thank goodness for the second day. On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me two turtledoves and a veggie tray that’s shaped like a tree.

~2~

We never go to Christmas Eve Mass because we usually have Christmas Eve plans with family. This year, thanks to COVID, we didn’t have Christmas Eve plans, and our older son made a persuasive argument for going to Christmas Eve Mass. I was worried about crowds, so we went an hour early to the chapel at Loyola University Maryland for the Christmas Eve Mass there.

There were plenty of seats—especially since we arrived an hour early. I took my boys outside to get some energy out.

I thought about how when I was growing up, we always went to Loyola for Christmas Mass since my mother’s uncle was a Jesuit who would visit Loyola at Christmas and celebrate Mass for us there.

I like thinking about how my children’s memories will include racing around campus in their fancy Christmas outfits before Mass.

It’s just so wonderful that this Christmas we could go to Mass in person. I like to think I never took receiving the Eucharist for granted, but the pandemic really forced me to realize that nothing is a given.

Even with all the challenges of this Christmas season—and there are many—I am so thankful.

~3~

For the first time ever, I planned out our Christmas menu reasonably well.

We had crab cakes and seared scallops on Christmas Eve, pot roast for Christmas dinner, and I even remembered to pick up what we needed for breakfasts and lunches.

It has only taken me 17 years of marriage to figure out what we need to have in the house for Christmas—mainly homemade chocolate chip cookies to fill in where there are any gaps.

~4~

Do you have a favorite gift you gave this Christmas? I have so many that I can’t decide which is my favorite—and some I have yet to give. I was so excited that a friend offered us her son’s saxophone to give to our older son who has been wanting one. Our eighth grader was thrilled to find that under the tree.

My favorite gift for my husband was a vintage Santa blow-mold that I found in an antique store last week. I had driven to a different part of town to pick up some photo gifts at a pharmacy. The pharmacy failed me, and the photo gifts weren’t ready. But I noticed a cute antique store, and I decided to pop in, where I found the blow mold. I knew he would love it, and I was right.

~5~

I am always so excited to give gifts that I forget that people are going to give me gifts, too.

This year I have been in awe of the magnificent gifts I have received—a Grand Ole Opry flyswatter, a beautiful bird brooch, and a fantastic set of mixing bowls come immediately to mind.

John gave me an Our Lady of China print I have been wanting for a while, and—because he is amazing—he hung it on our wall on Christmas night.

~6~

I had bought a reindeer candy dish to give to a friend, but our younger son loves it. He has persuaded me that it was meant to be ours, especially since their school mascot is the Stags, and it looks like a stag.

So, it is the gift I never meant to give to myself, and it has become an iconic piece of our Christmas season.

You might think that Christmas would be less magical as your children get older, but it feels so special every year, and there’s less pressure, too.

~7~

One of the hardest parts of this Christmas is that we haven’t seen many extended family members. We will as weather and health permit, but it’s a little difficult to be patient. If you saw the glittery sequined cape I have for my goddaughter, you would understand my impatience. I hope she isn’t reading well enough to read this blog.

That said, I am grateful just to be together as a family of four. I hope you’re enjoying your celebration, whatever that looks like for you this year.

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