Christmas - Making Memories

Christmas has always been such a magical time for me and since the boys were born it has got so much better. The saying "I used to think being a kid on Christmas was the best thing ever but it turns out having kids on Christmas is" is so true because looking back, Christmas was so boring without the boys.

When I was younger I can remember waking up on Christmas morning, finding my stocking at the end of my bed, grabbing it and running into my parents room with it. Both me and my brother would jump on the bed to open the presents in the stocking. We would then all get ready and wait for my grandparents to turn up, which was when we would then open all the presents under the tree. This was our Christmas tradition. It wasn't fancy and it wasn't huge but this is what made Christmas special for us. And when I think of it I have such fond memories and that was our Christmas.

I want our boys to have those memories, the memories that are special to us as a family and that they will remember for years to come. I hope that they will realise things don't need to be huge and expensive to be special.

Before Christmas I was reading about peoples traditions and I was panicking a little thinking that we didn't really have any, but when Christmas Eve came and then Christmas morning I realised we were creating them as we went along.

On Finley's second Christmas we started the Christmas eve box. A book, Christmas DVD, pyjamas, hot chocolate and marshmallows. We have carried this on and now have a big treasure chest box for the boys. He won't have remembered it from the first 2 years, being only 1 & 2, and I didn't think he would have last year, he was 3, but to my surprise he did. I had this years box all ready for 6pm when we were going to place it outside my Mums front door, for us to stumble across on our way back from seeing the Christmas lights. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve Finley said about the box from the previous year and how Father Christmas left it by the door while we were looking out for his sleigh, this took me back and he even remembered what was in the box. This made me so excited as he was starting to remember our Christmases which meant our traditions were forming.

Then on Christmas morning Finley woke us up and found his stocking at the end of our bed (we were all sharing the same room). Noah then woke up with all the excitement and they both jumped onto our bed and opened their presents from their stockings. I sat there with my camera in hand and with a heart full of love as this was a dream of mine, to wake up Christmas and to have my children sit on our bed and open their presents. Those moments on Christmas day are ones I will treasure forever. That half an hour when it was just us 4, in our own little bubble, creating memories. That is what Christmas is to me, my family.