We have had a lot of hard Christmases in a row. Not for any terrible life reasons, and this is going to sound rather counterintuitive, but it's mainly because we have had a lot of small babies a lot of years in a row. Let's just recap:
Christmas Memory:
2018 - Ezra was 10 weeks old. On the way to Christmas dinner with husband's family we were informed that 5 year old cousin was attending with an active hand foot and mouth infection. We waved through the window and headed home to eat leftover and questionably old fish pie.
2019 - Ezra was just over 1 year old. I don't really remember this Christmas. There are a lot of videos from around 5am where he's wandering around the house. He didn't sleep well.
2020 - Covid Christmas in Wales. We were under lockdown, and then extra big lockdown for November, and then the government said we were going to be allowed to mix with our families as long as we stayed at home for the start of the month. Then they closed all the stores and then 2 days before Christmas the government said we weren't allowed to mix houses afterall and then we had a super awkward at home christmas. Oh, and I had a 3 month old.
2021 - This one was kind of fun actually. I think we cooked a dinner and had Andy's family over. My brother visited! But also I think it was still covid awkward.
2022 - My brother visited and we all went to Andy's family but his grandma's 3rd husband ended up in hospital and it was all very unfortunate and awkward.
2023 - We had 2 month old twins and life was impossible
2024 - We had 1 year 2 month old twins and life was still impossible.
This year we decided it was too many hard Christmases in a row and we booked a 5 night Christmas holiday to Bluestone - a holiday resort in West Wales. We booked a 4 bed house and my brother came with us. The resort park has a swimming pool with slides (which was open on Christmas!) and an indoor soft play and a outdoor kids adventure play area.
This was also a test to see how the twins do away from home since we've booked more holidays this year. The twins have never slept away from home before. They have slept in their own cribs since they were born. They slept in beds on holiday. It went OK. Except for one night where Clara stayed awake till midnight and then woke up Aubrey who then stayed awake until 3:30am. Of course that one night was Christmas.
But besides one difficult night, the trip was pretty good. Ezra had a great time and cried when we had to leave and took a video of the whole house to remember the trip.
We had been to Bluestone in 2021 when Lily was 6 months old:
And here she is now (5 years 2 months old):
Christmas dinner. We had smoked brisket (slow cooked), mac and cheese, corn on the cob, and roast carrots. It was really good. I kind of want to get a meat smoker now.
Ezra and Lily Opened presents on Christmas. We did most of our presents on Hanukkah but brought a few for Christmas morning. We've decided we are not a Santa family - Santa only gives presents to kids that haven't had 8 nights of presents already.
Santa did a parade on Christmas eve. Here he is waving to all the kids. Moments later both Lily and Aubrey catastrophically melted down and had to be carried home. It was very cold.
Ezra and Lily got tickets to Elf School for Christmas. It was cute.
We rented a golf cart to get around the resort and decorated it like christmas. 
Ezra and Lily Opened presents on Christmas. We did most of our presents on Hanukkah but brought a few for Christmas morning. We've decided we are not a Santa family - Santa only gives presents to kids that haven't had 8 nights of presents already.
Here we are carrying 5 days of groceries back to the lodge.
Overall it was a fun but exhausting holiday. I am not terrified of future holidays. My brother was a great sport about helping with kids and staying with us, but I am aware it is A LOT to spend 5 nights with 7/5/2/2 year old kids.
Christmases should get more fun and easier. I don't think we will do Bluestone again (it was very much a "we haven't been on holiday in years" kind of expense) BUT it's fun to think about all the Christmas traditions we can now make as a family.
Looking forward to catching up on everyone else's Christmas adventures in blogland...
Saying ‘it was a not bad Christmas’ = tell me you have young kids without telling me you have young kids. The bar is so low for the holiday, right? Your getaway sounded perfect and I am glad you had an extra set of hands. Their uncle was probably less bothered by any of the kid shenanigans since he doesn’t deal with it 24/7/365.
ReplyDeleteI am agog over the situation where someone brought a child with active HFM to a holiday. Stay home!! What in the world!!
Our Christmas was also not bad overall. Christmas Eve and day were the best. The gathering with all my siblings had some major peaks and valleys. We came back last night instead of this morning as there is a blizzard warning for today. I was not sad to leave a bit earlier…