Today is Thanksgiving and I have so many blessing to be grateful for. I know the holidays can be a stressful and lonely time for some but for me I choose to find the joy in the moments and season. Today though I'm going to keep it real and share with you what our holidays look like. I'm sure plenty of you can relate.
My family is my world. I have three kids (two bonus babes and one "ours" baby), an amazing husband, wonderful and supportive parents and a brother and sister in law who are fantastic. I am blessed to have a great extended family as well. I have a wonderful Sister in law and brother in law from my husband and the most adorable niece. We have more family whom we love but just don't get to see as often.
For us the holidays are a CHALLENGE to say the least. The house gets decorating in November for Christmas. Now, before you go ahead and judge, hear me out. We have a Christmas Eve baby and in order for us to not feel like he gets gipped on his birthday we have a birthday party for him in the beginning of December. This means we are crunched for time to get in ALL the holiday things and events. So, the decorations go up early. The second part of our challenge is my Firefighting schedule. This year I was supposed to be off for Thanksgiving, yay! But do to being understaffed in my rank (Captain) I was told I was forced hired on Thanksgiving (a force hire means you HAVE to work, no exceptions, they need a body in that seat to keep the engine available to respond to emergencies). So, this year I skipped the Fall and Thanksgiving decor and went straight into Christmas. We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving yesterday after getting family pictures taken. I also work on Christmas this year and New years eve and New years day (hey no one ever chooses to be a firefighter based off of all the events they will miss, it's just our reality). The other challenge is having a blended family. We try to coordinate when we have the kids and my schedule and when we can celebrate, thank God for shared icalendars! We are currently trying to switch days to give Ava and Jameson's mom our Christmas Day for her Christmas Eve this year because I'm off on Christmas Eve. It's so sweet the kids are more excited to be with their brother on his birthday than celebrate Christmas. We will see if the switch happens, things are interesting right now to say the least with the kid's mom (that's a post for another time).
Now the other thing that can be hard about the holidays is the family dynamics. Pair that with some wine or cocktails and it can turn out to be a true holiday miracle some people survive!
Despite all the moving parts and dynamics we love the holidays. We truly try to remember what it is all about. For us it is about family, togetherness and Jesus!
We can't wait to celebrate his birthday and to give back to others who may not be as fortunate as we are. I love giving gifts but for me it's not about the stuff, its about the thought; the time I take to think about a person and what they would specifically like. I can't wait to send our boxes off to kids in need through our church! So make a choice to choose your JOY this holiday season. Sometimes a simple act of kindness and helping other can be all the difference to them and a reminder of how thankful we all should truly be.