Previously at Geers Tree Farm: 2017 / 2016 / 2015 / 2014 / 2013 and for a REAL throwback, 2009

This Christmas season is happier all the way around because E is here to enjoy things with us. We still enjoyed them while he was deployed, but knowing he was missing out dulled the shine of everything just a little. Plus it’s nice to have two adults around when you put up outside Christmas lights so one can call 911 when the other falls off the ladder. (No one actually fell off any ladders.) It’s also super nice to have another adult to wear the baby on his back for tree hunting so I can take pictures that have the baby in them.

We went to Geers Tree Farm for our tree, just like we do every year, and it was perfect. It wasn’t actually as cold as it looks in these pictures. I mean, it wasn’t like the year we didn’t even wear coats, but there was no wind and the sun was shining and I ended up taking off my scarf because hiking around is hard work and I got warm. We took the wagon ride up to the same hill where we’ve gotten our tree the last four years and then walked most of the way back, enjoying the view. The farm was the least crowded we’ve ever seen it (going at 9:30 am on a Friday was a good call!) and we were home with the tree up and decorated before noon.

We actually ended up with a slightly smaller tree than we usually do, but that’s ok because our living room isn’t that big and we’re going to have to fit presents for 5 kids and 7 adults in there on the 25th. I’ll tell Caroline that’s why Santa didn’t bring her a pony – there just wasn’t room.

Previously: 2013, 2015

Taking an Essex Steam Train ride to the North Pole is one of our favorite Christmas traditions. Last year was sort of awful because Finnegan was only 4 months old, it was the 7 pm train, and it was VERY loud. He cried almost the entire time. I don’t think I even took pictures with my real camera – I definitely never blogged it. This year I might have skipped it because E is gone and wrangling four kids on my own at public events is hard, but our boat FRG* decided that to celebrate Kids Halfway Night we would get tickets to the Essex Steam Train North Pole Express. Since it was a group activity (and the FRG subsidized the tickets) it seemed like fate that we should go.

The kids all did GREAT. No crying, no meltdowns, no spilled hot cocoa, (mostly) no torturing each other. There wasn’t even any fighting about who got to sit by the window. We got there right on time and didn’t have to wait long to board. Basically, everything was magical.

Our train car this year was significantly darker than in previous years so my photos are blurry and noisy. I think next year I might – MIGHT – splurge on first class tickets. The fanciest elves host the first class cars, there’s so much more room for dancing, and they have more twinkle lights which would mean better pictures. I’ll also make sure the baby doesn’t rub his grubby fingers all over my lens, leaving some sort of sticky stuff that made all my pictures fuzzy and out of focus.

The gnome jammies and hats are cute enough to make up for a slight lack in technical quality though.

*Quick Navy life lesson: submarines are called boats. What you think of as boats are called ships. An FRG is the family readiness group, which is like a club for all the spouses/families of people on that submarine. They do fundraisers and bake sales and have meetings and they keep us updated on what’s happening with the boat while they’re gone. Halfway Night marks (approximately) the halfway done with deployment date.

When I went to Boston a couple weeks ago for the Red Sox family focus group thing, one of the ideas we bloggers had was an earlier, kid-friendly game. Activities for the kids, cheap food, and maybe a big sign that says “WARNING: CHILDREN’S SECTION” so no one gave us dirty looks when our kid talked through the whole thing. It turns out that’s already an event, called Futures at Fenway, and the team generously offered us tickets so we could attend. I wasn’t sure we’d last the whole 9 innings and I was pretty sure I’d spend most of my time walking around with a very bored 2-year-old and I wouldn’t see much of the game, but I love love love Fenway so we made plans to go anyway.

It turns out my children LIKE baseball. OK, maybe they mostly like popcorn and peanuts and giant sodas ($7.50 plus free refills! Best deal ever!) and getting to sit in my lap. But that translated into watching the whole 8 1/2 innings (We won!) from our seats. I didn’t even have to resort to letting them watch Disney Jr on my phone. It was a good game too – it wasn’t the Red Sox, but the Sea Dogs, their affiliate team. That means these guys are still hoping to get noticed by the major leagues and so they try really, really hard. They run even if it looks like an easy out at first, they FLING themselves across the field for diving catches, they strike out instead of always taking the walk. It was exciting! It was tons of fun! It was a long day for a 2.5 year old and there might have been a tiiiiiiny bit of whining and crying but it was one of the best family days we’ve ever had. I felt relaxed almost the whole time – and when was the last time I said that about a summer afternoon at a crowded public event with two small children?

I was going to write a whole paragraph about how sports – even just a vague awareness that your grandfather really loved golf, explained you ball data and made you watch it on TV in the summers when you were visiting – can mean a lot to a kid. But there seems to be a lot of dust in here and my eyes are, uh, watering quite a bit, so I’ll just say I hope Evan and Caroline have great memories of our visits to Fenway and that we can make it a summer tradition.

p.s. The event had a TON of stuff that was kid friendly – the zoo and the aquarium had animals there, Kidz Bop did a concert after the game and a meet-and-greet, the players signed autographs, a bounce house – plus the concessions were half priced. We enjoyed the eating and the bounce house, but the kids did so great in our seats we didn’t really NEED all the distractions. I would highly recommend it for families.

Disclaimer: The PR team for the Red Sox left us tickets at will-call so we could attend. No other compensation was provided. Tickets for the event started at just $5, so trust me when I say they didn’t pay for me to talk about the event. 

E has to work on Christmas this year. I realize in the scheme of Ways The Military Can Screw Up Your Holidays having to work on Christmas Day is pretty minor, but it’s the first time this has happened since having kids. (Funny enough, neither of us can remember if it happened BEFORE kids – Maybe once? I know it happened the very first year we were dating but we weren’t spending the holidays together then.)

I’m really glad he’s not deployed. I’m glad it’s only a 24 hour watch. I’m glad we have some family visiting so our day can still be special. But I’m a little stumped on what to do about Santa, whether I need to hire a real beard Santa or not.

The way our day(s) would go if E didn’t have work is: Christmas Eve service at our church, open one present before bed, wake up at 7 am, open our stockings, open our gifts, make pancakes, eat way too much chocolate, have some sort of Christmasy dinner, get really bored and whiny, fight over new toys, put on fresh jammies (since we’re probably still wearing the ones we woke up in), go to bed.

This year we have three options.

1. Santa comes early. One of us sneaks all the gifts out and fill the stockings while the other loads the kids into the car for church and we open everything before bed on Christmas Eve. The major problem with this plan is getting the kids to GO to bed. They are sooooo tired in the evenings now that they don’t nap and I’d expect at least a couple meltdowns during the gift-opening, followed by major over-tired hyper energy boosts that keep them up until 11 pm. But in the morning they’ll have all the new presents to play with and we can still have pancakes.

2. Santa comes late. The kids can’t read a calendar, they don’t know what day it is. So we go to Christmas Eve service, put them to bed, and when they wake up it’s just a fun Play With Grandma and Grandpa day. I put out the gifts after they go to bed and we have normal Christmas on the 26th. I’ll let the kids open their stockings while we wait for E to get home and then he jumps right in to presents. We can all spend the whole day together, complete with pancakes and Christmas dinner. But on the 25th of December we won’t celebrate anything and I’m not entirely sure that won’t bum me out.

3. Early morning Christmas. E doesn’t actually have to be at work until 9 am (AT work, which means he has to leave here around 8 am) so we could potentially get all the major Christmas activities done before he goes in. We can wake the kids up at 6 am for stockings and presents (if they aren’t already up from excitement). Then the kids can play with their bazillion new toys all day, we can have something casual for lunch, and they can go to bed at the regular time. ALSO maybe possibly after they go to bed I can sneak off to see Les Mis alone, so I can sob my eyes out without judgment. We can do a Christmas ham and all the side dishes on the 26th if I work up enough energy, but I wouldn’t mind terribly if we skipped it for some pizza. The down side is the rush to get everything over with before E goes in to work – do we want to make it a race to open everything as fast as possible?

I realize this is an insanely first world problem – “Oh noes! My kids are getting SO MUCH stuff for Christmas we need HOURS to open it all! We might not get pancakes together! So tragic!” – but I’m trying to figure out how keep Magical Christmas magical for the ginger bebehs.

What would you do for your family? Option 1, option 2 or options 3?

We have a new Christmas tradition in our house. Aside from decorating our home with christmas light display and Christmas ornaments, it involves reading an adorable book about a plucky little mouse. It also involves Mommy barely making it through the last page without sobbing quietly into her children’s heads. Because, magic. And Christmas. And amazement. And magic.

Twas The Mouse That Saved Christmas is a personalized storybook from Marblespark. When you order a copy, you tell Marblespark your child’s name and they put it in the story in several places (on the cover, on Santa’s list, in the story itself). I thought Evan might be a little young to understand that the story is for him but he is AMAZED that HIS NAME is in a book. (Bonus side effect: he now recognizes his name in writing and can spell it out loud.)

I wasn’t 100% sure I would love a personalized book (I remember ones from my own childhood that were very poorly done) but this one totally exceeded my expectations. The illustrations are cute and colorful and the whole story is written in rhyme – just like the original Twas The Night Before Christmas. Both Evan and Caroline request it every night at story time.

We – E and I – are both happy to oblige. Reading about the joy and magic of Christmas to my two not-so-tiny babies in the glow of our Christmas tree is almost more than my mama heart can handle. The last page gets me almost every time, as soon as I read Santa’s letter to Evan reminding him being with those we love is the best part of the holidays. Excuse me, I have something in my eye again.

 Marblespark would like to send one of my readers a personalized copy of Twas The Mouse That Saved Christmas for their child. I’m told the last day to order to get the book for this Christmas is December 12th so I’ll pick a winner on Friday (contest will close Thursday night) just to be sure we make the cut off. That gives anyone who doesn’t win but still wants a copy plenty of time to get their own book ordered too.

Rafflecopter makes entering really easy. The comment question is: Who would you give the book to if you won? Your child? A niece or nephew? A grandchild?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Marblespark sent me a copy of this book personalized with Evan’s name so we could read and enjoy it. I was not compensated in any way or obligated to write about it if I didn’t genuinely love the book. All opinions and photos are my own.