Another Christmas has come and gone already! I hope you all had a very merry holiday with all of your loved ones. Our Christmas Eve and Christmas day festivities have changed a bit since starting residency in Massachusetts as we no longer have family near to us at all. On top of that, this year, Josh had to work the entire holiday weekend which left the girls and I to make the most of the holiday on our own. I was fairly bummed when I found out Josh's schedule early in the month, but I was also determined not to let it get me down. We are a medical family and the reality is that this type of situation will happen again in the future so I'd better learn to live with it!
The girls and I woke up on Christmas Eve to a light snowfall. It turned to rain fairly quickly but since this was my first "white" Christmas Eve experience, I decided to take the girls out to the yard in our pj's to play in it for all of the twenty minutes that snow actually fell. We had done a ton of baking the day before and delivered mason jars full of cookies to our neighbors, watched Home Alone, baked and decorated our annual birthday cake for Jesus, sprinkled reindeer food (a mixture of oatmeal and glitter) in the front yard, and waited for Dad to get home in the late evening so that we could open Christmas pjs and put cookies and milk out for Santa.
On Christmas day, the girls woke up at their usual time, 6am, and we headed down to see if Santa Claus had made an appearance at the Scurlock house. Ryan was SO excited that Santa had eaten the cookies she put out and also couldn't believe all the presents that he left for her and that he took her "list". I was disappointed that Josh couldn't watch all of her excitement but I made sure to take lots of video. After a couple of hours spent opening gifts, going through stockings and putting together toys, the girls and I got ready for church. I was especially thankful to have Christmas fall on a Sunday this year so that the girls and I had reason to get ready for the day and get out the door to celebrate Jesus Christ's birth. After church, we headed over to UMass to visit Josh during his shift. While it is hard to have him working on holidays, I'm glad that we've made visiting him an important part of our day. Being together is what's most important to me, even if it's only for a few minutes. Plus, we even had a good friend here who sliced his hand opening one of his children's gifts and Josh ended up stitching him up in the ER. I guess it pays to have friends working at the hospital on Christmas day!
Traditionally, I make a big Christmas breakfast of cinnamon rolls, eggs, bacon and more but since Josh was not going to be around for breakfast on Christmas morning, I opted to break from tradition and have the same meal but for dinner instead. Josh was able to make it home for breakfast for dinner immediately followed by singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and blowing out a candle, twice.
We had such a good Christmas holiday weekend and I couldn't feel more thankful for all of the things that I've been blessed with, especially this little family of mine. I hope your Christmas was just as memorable and that you were able to spend it with all the ones you love the most.
