December Moments: What I Envisioned Versus Reality

This post first appeared 12/22/17.

In early December, I wrote a post entitled, “7 December Moments That We’re Creating”. In the post, I chatted briefly about how we were creating lasting and tender memories instead of buying up everything in the stores.

In that post, I also listed the 7 moments I wanted us to create during the month of December. Since then, we have created most of those moments.

Let’s have a look, shall we?

1. Decorate the window with window clings.

In my head, I envisioned my youngest son and I creating a window scene in the windows together just as we did for Halloween – because my oldest son said he was too big to do it. Turns out, my oldest son wanted in on the fun, so the both of them created the window sticker scene together. It really was a cute moment and they didn’t even fight over the clings.

2. Decorate a gingerbread house together. 

Shit got real!

I thought it would be a relaxed evening around the dining room table with the three or four of us decorating the gingerbread house, laughing, talking, and making beautiful memories. Ha! That did not happen. It was chaos!

My oldest son was so focused on how perfect the gingerbread house should look and be constructed that I walked away after about 10 minutes. I couldn’t take the gingerbread drama, so I walked away and so did my youngest son.

Ain’t nobody got time for someone hogging all the damn sprinkles and gumdrops! Hahaha!

It turned out pretty cool, though!

3. Sleep under the Christmas tree lights.

So far we have not set an intentional night to do this, however, the boys are enjoying e.v.e.r.y. minute of having the tree lit. In fact, they slept under it Saturday night and I happened to grab this photo on my phone.

4. Decorate the Christmas tree together.

Just as my oldest son had OCD with the gingerbread house, I had it with the Christmas tree. I wanted the proportionate amount of ornaments for each foot of tree there was.

Have you ever heard of that? If you haven’t; there is an actual formula that states how many ornaments and lights you should have per foot of tree. 🙂

Did I master it? I’m not sure. LOL.

5. Take fun holiday pajama photos.

Amazingly, this did happen this past Saturday, right before the gingerbread festivities. I ended up finding matching tartan family pajamas on sale at Ruler Foods. Imagine that!

So, instead of the $80-ish it was going to cost me at Kohl’s with a coupon; I ended up only paying $39 for 4 pair of pajamas! The original price was $40 a pair and they were on sale for $9. What an amazing savings!

When it was time to take the photos, my oldest son was not moved and could care less. My youngest son, on the other hand, had a great time with it, just as well as I did.

I ended up putting together a quick, cute 4×6 Christmas card on Walgreens.com the next day and getting them sent out. Whew!

6. Philly Pretzel Factory & Solemn Oath Brewery Beer Tour

Alright. I envisioned this as a fun couples date on a Saturday; taking the tour, sampling the beers, and ending the trip with yummy pretzels creations from the Philly Pretzel Factory.

Only it didn’t happen that way.

We actually headed to Naperville on Sunday. We spent some time picking out what we wanted at the Philly Pretzel Factory and eating in the car. After that, I spotted a Dollar Tree and had to make my way there. Following the Dollar Tree pit stop, I GPS-ed Solemn Oath Brewery and literally stopped in for 5 minutes, sampled two beers, and bought a pack. Just like that!

From all of my traveling, there is one thing that I have learned. If you are ever in an area away from home and you see someplace that you would like to stop. Just do it! If you don’t you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Seriously.

Do you know that on our way to the Smoky Mountains, I wanted to stop at an old abandoned carnival, but I couldn’t get over, due to construction. On the way back, for whatever reason, I didn’t stop either. Ever since then, I wonder “what if I had stopped?”

And, to top it off with, I ran across another blogger who had been and had her own photos and I was so upset because all I wanted was to see it for myself and get my own memories. And, the truth is – I don’t know that we’ll ever go back.

Talk about #BloggerEnvy So, let me say this again.

If you are ever in an area away from home and you see someplace that you would like to stop. Just do it!

By the way, a few photos from my pit stop at the brewery can be found on my Instagram. Check out the post and swipe for more of the photos.

7. Bake homemade cookies together.

Finally, the last thing on our list was and is to make homemade cookies together. We haven’t done this one yet because we plan to save it for Christmas Eve. And, I am sure everything will go just fine.

What are the rest of your December plans? I’d love to hear about them!

Happy Holidays!