The holidays were a whirlwind. It was pretty typical, from a
tradition perspective. At the same time, it was untraditional in some respects.
This was the first year since Keely was an infant (2 months old) that we traveled
out of our home for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. For those keeping
track, that’s 10 years! It was also the first time in my life that we went to
church on Christmas Day instead of Christmas Eve. For those keeping track on
that one, that’s 37 years (!) since I had another birthday right before
Christmas.
We had the Florida Donovan Torviks visiting us this year, so
we had four additional people at our house from the 21st to the 2nd…minus
the time we were all in New Jersey (5-6 nights). We enjoyed having them stay
with us, and the kids all got lots of cousin time. We even got all of the
Donovan cousins together in New Jersey for a couple of days. This holiday
season might also go down as one of the most unphotographed…I just don’t feel like
we took a lot of photos.
The kids were very blessed, err…spoiled, this Christmas. They
both received iPod Nanos from Mom & Dad along with some iTunes gift cards.
They got lots of other gifts from Santa, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. One
of my favorite things about this Christmas though is their generosity with each
other and their cousins. They took money that they make from odd jobs (Quinn
from leaf raking and lawn mowing, Keely from cat sitting) and used the money to
buy gifts for each other and each of their cousins. They weren’t gifts of high
monetary value (love Five Below…each gift was $5) but they were well thought
out gifts for each person. They also wrapped and labeled each gift themselves. This
wasn’t something they were prompted to do, it was something they chose to do on
their own. Once in a while, you get a glimpse of the person they are becoming
and this was one of those times. They got to truly experience the joy of gift
giving, instead of just receiving and I think it was wonderful.
So what else? We spent five nights in New Jersey, and as
seems to be typical had many Christmas celebrations. We spent Christmas Eve and
morning with the Donovans. Another non-tradition was having pizza on Christmas
Eve for dinner. That’s not the norm, but it was an easy and non-stressful way
to feed the 10 of us. I’m all for non-stress, as this year especially I felt Christmas
and the weeks leading up to it to be a series of tasks I had to manage and
complete. It felt like a chore, and it wasn’t all that enjoyable. In any event,
as it typically does it all came together and I had no reason to stress. So
back to Christmas Day, after opening presents and having a nice home cooked
breakfast (Ryan and I were on that one) we showered and dressed for church.
After church, we headed to my parents for the rest of the day and night. We
celebrated with dinner, drinks, dessert, etc. with all of my aunts, uncles and
cousins and it was quite enjoyable. It was a smaller, manageable group and this
year it was catered which made it much less stressful for my mom (that’s where
I get my tendency to stress!).
The next morning, we did Christmas morning all over again on a smaller scale
with Nana, Papa and Aunt Annie. Unfortunately, Quinn got sick that morning –
though it was after he opened his presents. It seems he had a small 24 hour bug
so we quarantined him at my parents’ (thanks to Nana for taking care of him)
and went ice skating with Keely. The next day, we went bowling and Quinn was
feeling up to coming along. Keely also had a sleepover at Annie’s and they had
a blast. Friday night we had a lovely dinner with Uncle Joe and J.R. and that
completed seeing my mom’s side of the family. Saturday it was back to the
Donovans’ to see the North Carolina bunch and have all of the cousins together.
Sunday was a special day – Cecilia’s baptism. I was honored to be her Godmother
and it was a nice ceremony followed by lunch at Grandma & Grandpa’s. Then
we headed back home to Virginia…we were happy to have a few days at home before
school and work started back up.New Year’s was pretty quiet…but we had fun
ringing in 2014 with some games and appetizers for dinner. Oh, and in the
course of all of these events, Lois and I managed to run 30+ miles together :)
It was a lovely holiday season…surrounded by those we love, and that is what is
most important. We are very blessed indeed!
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