A COVID Christmas

Nothing like waiting until nearly Presidents Day to post about Christmas. I have a very well-established pattern at this point of being late to the blog. In trying to figure out why, I realize there are two main reasons: first, it is a huge chore to go through the pictures and pick out the right ones. I have well over 100 to sort through and those don't even include Jason's. Second, everything feels repetitive. I'm about to show you the same pictures as last year, the year before, etc: us getting our tree, the boys leaving cookies for Santa, and all the in-betweens. If you add the constant activity around here and the fact that we don't have an office, there also isn't much quiet time to sit and type. 

But, here we are, and the one main difference this year of course was COVID-19. We knew we would be celebrating just the 4 of us but Jason and I vowed to still make it as special as we could. Miraculously, Ashton still seems to believe in Santa so of course we played that up. Pete came as usual, we did the holiday crafts as usual, and the house looked very festive. We got a great tree and we way overbought on the Christmas presents. Like there was a WALL of gifts, it was actually ridiculous. 

So this was going to be in two parts - most of December and then December 24 and 25th, as those magical days deserve to be on their own. But then I decided, you know what? It's bloody February, let it go Elsa. Blurry photos of opening presents? Gone. Shots of Jason cooking all the things? Gone. There are 12 days of Christmas - can I post about it in 12 photos?! Pssssh. Buckle up ya'll.  

1) Getting our tree obvi. We take the same photo every year (hopefully 2020 will be the first and last one with masks!)

2) Our holiday card. 

I'll admit, I realized the irony after I mailed these out. No one is holding anyone close right now except for those in their immediate household. If you listen to your governor. But anyway, it was super sticky and humid out, we were late for the photo shoot, and we had never used this photographer. All signs pointed to disaster but, I love this photo :)

3 and 4) This is super funny. There's only so many places you can hide presents after your kids learn they can look for them. We actually stuck most of the boys' gifts in the downstairs shower, literally 2 feet from where they go to the bathroom like a thousand times a day. 

Muah haha. They never suspected.

5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) We do try and make things festive in December. This year, with no parties, no special events, etc. it was harder but we did a lot of crafts and made cookies like, uh, many times.

Yes Ashton has his shirt off a lot. Alex does too actually - supposedly they are "SO HOT". 

10) Christmas Eve magic

11) And of course Santa came (see the wall of presents?? I told you, it was beyond). 

See the picture on the table? This is the upclose. 

12a)

So what I did was, the night of December 23rd, I snuck in and took pictures of the boys sleeping, being careful not to show their pj's. THEN, on the 24th, I dropped them into a photo template and sent it to Walmart to get printed. 

12 (b). Santa's note said:

If you're saying to yourself the boys' minds must have been blown, then you would be right.

Here is the video of Christmas morning -> https://youtu.be/AVuQVVcS9jk

And honestly, of course I do have tons of pictures of breakfast, opening presents, stockings, the games we played, the boys riding their hoverboards around and around and around and around the living room, but really the most important thing is that the 4 of us were together, we zoomed our families, and we were healthy and safe. 

Last picture of 2020! Lucky 13 :)

I can't say 2021 has been much more palatable than 2020, but there is lots of time left...fingers and toes crossed! And phew, I'm relieved this post is finally done. Perhaps my new year's resolution will be to keep up!