Pajama Christmas

In a year where chaos has been the theme an nothing familiar has taken place, I am 100% giddy like a child for Christmas! Each year our family does Pajama Christmas. We completely skip all the traditional Christmas Day festivities and opt for a day of leisure. And I couldn't be more excited this year! We don't completely deny Christmas it's traditions. We just do them a day early. On Christmas Eve we do the big dinner with friends and we allow the kids to open one gift. But on Christmas Day when everyone else is up early baking, cooking, cleaning, and even showering- we are cozied around our tree doing none f it.

Our Christmas morning starts with a tradition that began when I was a child. My grandparents owned a general store. And each year on Christmas Eve we'd head over to their house and have the big dinner then stay up until midnight to open gifts. That's not the tradition I am talking about though. The best part of Christmas with our grandparents was that they would wrap and gift each of the grand kids a box or two of Pop Tarts. Then on Christmas Morning we already had breakfast while we opened our gifts from Santa!

So as soon as the kids wake us, we all pour out into the living room and begin. We eat Pop Tarts and open presents. We are sure to get games and movies each year for the kids because the remainder of the day is 100% lazy family day. We play games, watch movies, and never get out of our jammies! It's magnificent! And there is NO cooking! A day or two before I will buy sub sandwiches, etc. so that our lazy day isn't bothered by trivial things like cooking.

This is my favorite day of the year because I know that I will have the whole day with my family. Free of disruptions and responsibilities. It's a day when all of us are happy to be at home with each other. We have no where to go and nothing to do other than enjoy each other.

This year, this tradition means even more to me. I have really learned to refocus and appreciate every day with my husband an children. Each day is not promised to us but is gifted to us. And the greatest gift each year isn't under my tree. It's sitting in its jammies eating Pop Tarts with me.