Our Weekend

It's always hard to get back into the groove of things after a long, relaxing weekend.  We were blessed to have Hubby home for five days, while we all enjoyed a break from the hustle-bustle of work, school, music lessons and other engagements.  The entire five days was spent home, except for Thursday afternoon and evening  when we were enjoying Thanksgiving at Grandma's (and an unfortunate run to the emergency room on Saturday).

  

Wood was split and stacked: Christmas gifts were wrapped; colorful cupcakes were baked. Hubby finished a book he started months ago, and I embarked on a new knitting adventure.  The last of the fall tidying was completed; bicycles and lawn mowers were stored away in the shed.  Games were played; Lego creations were constructed; puzzles were put together; and pictures were drawn. We indulged in a favorite BBC movie, Sense and Sensibility; pulled the curtains and slept longer in the mornings; consumed delicious, Hubby-made breakfasts; and drank lots of coffee and tea.  I spent some relaxing hours in my sewing room working on Christmas projects, and Hubby was even lured in to help me with some seam ripping.  We received our first real snowstorm (we did have a dusting of snow a few weeks ago), and it seems that winter, along with the dawning of the Christmas season, is now upon us.

We have chosen to keep our holidays as simple as possible so that we can enjoy the time off, the time we can all spend together doing the things we enjoy.  We learned early in our parenting years that packing up and going a gazillion places during the holidays only made for tired, cranky kids with even more tired and cranky parents.  Someone always ended up getting sick, someone always ended up crying, and either mom or dad always said, "We aren't doing that again." As a family of twelve, we have had to adapt and find the things that work for us, for all of us; and we have learned by keeping our holidays low key, we can now enjoy the time that was meant to be family time.  After the celebrations, we feel rested and complete, refueled for the daily routines of life.  Although it's always sad to see Hubby leave for work on Monday, we can look back over the weekend and say that that we simply had a good time.