Our First Christmas Eve as a Family of Three

What a great first Christmas with our best gift ever, sweet little Miss Helen Grace! John and I are blessed to have families that blend very well together and love to have joint family get-togethers, so we kicked off the holiday festivities with lunch at Bubba’s on Christmas Eve. I was in hog heaven getting to spend some time with my cousins, William and Ryves, and John’s Aunt Kathryn came from NYC to spend Christmas with us. We missed our Florida family though!

After an afternoon of family time and grazing of the food table, we went to Bubba’s church, Byhalia Methodist, for the candlelight Christmas service. It’s one of my favorite Christmastime traditions because they sing old carols and end the service with a candle lit singing of Silent Night- gives me chills! I was surprised that Brother Jim started the service with announcing the names of all the new babies in attendance that night and asked that whomever was holding the baby stand up and show the baby to the congregation. I happened to be the lucky one holding her in my lap, and while I was still flustered at getting from the car to the church in the pouring down raining and finding a seat on an aisle and identifying silent toys to keep her entertained…I had to stand up in front of everyone! Whew, good thing HG was so cute and flirty and distracted most people from looking at her frazzled mama! And that was very sweet of him to include us in their church family. Helen Grace stayed very quiet and entertained with her teething ring and program during the service. I realized at one point though that there was a hunk missing out of the program and that it was in her mouth- eek! John ran with her outside quickly but couldn’t find it. We assumed she swallowed it, but she spit it out in the car on the way home. Oh, what a parenting moment! Through the singing of Silent Night, my eyes filled with tears as I held my baby in the candlelight, surrounded by the people that mean the most to me in the world, and realizing how Mary must have felt carrying Jesus and knowing what he was going to experience in his lifetime. We are so blessed to have been given the gift of life because of His great sacrifice. “A baby changes everything”…in ALL of our lives.

We ended Christmas Eve with our traditional time around the fire at Ms. Jeanne’s house. I love cuddling up in front of the fireplace with Buster Dog, John, Peg, Jeanne, Aunt Kathryn, now HG, and a tall glass of wine and watching everyone open gifts. Helen Grace has fallen in love with a stuffed Santa at Ms. Jeanne’s house, probably because he’s just her size, and she had a good time cuddling/wrestling with him. Her favorite part of the gift opening was TISSUE PAPER.

We finally made it home seven hours after we first left to go to Bubba’s, and although John laughed at me because HG won’t remember any of this, I went through all the Santa traditions that my parents did when I was a child. We left out cookies for Santa, and believe it or not, he even left some crumbs for Helen Grace!

HG and SpifGoogle and HG (and the loud singing Santa that she wasn’t too fond of ) Super Baby!!! Our new family of three And with Bubba Getting busy on the program at Bubba’s church Daddy joining in with the Santa wrestling “I’m gonna get you, Santa!” Enjoying the fire on a cold, rainy Christmas Eve Opening presents from Grandma- took HG a while to get the tearing paper thing. Yummm, tissue paper! Does it get better than this as a mama? So much fun! Cookies for Santa- he loves Snickerdoodles at our house. Helen Grace can’t wait for Santa to get here! Oh my, Santa left some crumbs for HG so that she will *believe* and be a good little girl!