Our First Holiday Season

Chanukah came early this year. It started BEFORE Thanksgiving. Crazy? Right? 

So we celebrated. Duh. 

We lit candles each night - first time we didn't miss a single night. And Eliana was enamored with the candles. We lit them with dinner each night. She watched them the entire time she ate.  

We hope your holidays were as wonderful as ours. 

While Eliana and I are Jewish, Matt is not. So we celebrate Christmas with Matt and his extended family. 

Like I explained about Thanksgiving, Matt's family celebrates the weekend before. This was that wonderful weekend in December with 70 degree weather. So yes, Matt & Eliana are walking in the woods in a T-shirt. So we went to the shore to celebrate at Matt's uncle & aunt's house with the whole extended family. We got there early to spend some extra time playing outside in the park. Someone LOVES the swing!

We play games. Sometimes trivia. Sometimes funny. This year we played reindeer antlers. One team member had to wear nylons on his head with the toes cut off. And they rest of us filled them to make antlers. I'm filled with hot air, so our team won!

Unfortunately, we weren't going to be around on actual Christmas day. So we celebrate as a family on Sunday. We attempted to go to Church with Linda (someone's nap got in the way). And then came home for lunch and presents. We didn't really do presents for Eliana for Chanukah, so this was new. 

Eliana watched Matt intently as he "helped" her open her gifts. 

We have a favorite book around here. Nana found it while we were walking around NYC over the summer. Dinosaur v. Bedtime is a crowd pleaser around these parts. And Lauren & Phil gave us the next book in the series, Dinosaur v. Library. Let me just tell you ~ AMAZING!!!!!! We are in so much love.

Christmas is a strange holiday. I hate all the commercialization that has happened in the last few decades. I hate listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. But I love the actually holiday. I do enjoy going to church with Linda. 

And this time of the year will be very complicated in 2014. Eliana will be old enough to ask questions and wonder why we are celebrating both holidays. How do you say that everyone believes something a little different, but that is also really complicated. and that it's okay because we support each other's differences. And that we believe one thing and Daddy believes something different but we can celebrate all together. Wish us luck! 

We hope that your holidays were filled with family, love, and happiness. We hope that they holidays were exactly what you wanted from them. And maybe a little more.