Holiday Traditions

Ayden has had a rough past couple of nights, the source of which is coinciding with his clinginess/fussiness during the day no doubt. Nights like those leave me feeling like a truck hit me by morning and today David got up with Ayden and gave me a chance to sleep in!! It was beyond glorious. I turned my white noise App on and woke up on my own a little over an hour later and that amount was just the ticket. Actually, I think the ticket was waking on my own rather than being woken up since it really isn't the amount of sleep that helps you feel rested but which point in your sleep cycle you wake from.

*Side note* That is another reason why co-sleeping has been a good arrangement for us. Unless Ayden is having a rough night our sleep cycles tend to be in sync so even though I still may wake a few times, I can wake for the day feeling rested. There are even times when I wake on my own only for him to stir a minute later. It is actually pretty amazing...

After breakfast, Ayden and I joined David for a CrossFit workout (and by joined, I just mean hung out and watched)  and then we went to see Jess and Adam at Jess' family's annual candy making party.  It is always good to see them.  We didn't stay too long because we had CHRISTMAS DECORATING on our agenda for the day!!

Obviously Ayden is still too young to know about, care about, or even remember traditions but my mother always made Christmas so magical for me that I have always looked forward to being a mother for Christmas.  The traditions we have in place so far are the ones that we had before Ayden was here:  Watching Elf and drinking some sort of warm, festive drink while decorating the tree for instance.

Candy Cane Lane tea and a big hunk of dark chocolate!
(Combo tastes like peppermint bark!)

New ones will be that Ayden gets to help David with the tree topper, going to visit Santa (happening tomorrow!), opening a gift of Christmas PJs along with something fun for the family to do on Christmas Eve and, of course, Santa will visit our house on Christmas morning.  It is a good thing that we get to have a few Christmases before Ayden will start remembering/expecting traditions to figure out the exact details.  For instance, Santa wrapped presents for me but didn't for David (they were somehow even wrapped in the EXACT same paper EVERY year).  I liked having them wrapped because I'd come down stairs to a mountain of mysterious gifts.  David liked having everything out of the boxes, assembled and ready to play with.  And, he argues, that he still got plenty of wrapped gifts from his parents so he still had plenty of mystery.  As Ayden gets older we may add in a few more for fun like Elf on the Shelf and leaving cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeer.  I hope Santa doesn't mind Paleo cookies :).

Decorating the tree with a (almost) toddler is interesting to say the least...

The weather has been warm and rainy for December and it hasn't really felt like Christmas time but coming home after an evening with Whitney and Kellen (we got to see both sets of our favorite friends all in one day!) to a pretty tree in our front window definitely helped!

What are your family's holiday traditions?  Hearing about what other families do would definitely help us on our quest to figuring out exactly what we want to do.  Thanks for sharing!

~Sarah