Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Christmas Chaos and a Lesson in Simplicity

We're in the full swing of Christmas hustle and bustle. I being the over planner/type A personality I am sat down with my planner and the Holiday events calendar for our state and planned out activities for every weekend. We were supposed to start Friday November 23rd AKA Festive Friday in our house, you see we've never been Black Friday folks I respect people who do it I'm just not one of them, so instead we dub the day Festive Friday and deck the halls, put up the tree, bake treats if there's time, listen to Christmas and end the day with our own kick off to the Christmas season. This year we made plans to attend our City's annual Holiday River Parade it's a big event and lots of people turn out for it.

The night was chilly, but our spirits were high as we bundled our toddler up in a million and one blankets trying to keep her warm when all she wanted to do was run around. We got there got seated and over the loud speaker comes a voice saying the evenings events had been delayed about 30 minutes. Cue mom panic moment, but I regrouped and thought to myself ok we can do this we can entertain her for 30 minutes and then we'll be rewarded as she oohs and ahhs at the Holiday displays. So we headed over to the nearby playground not far from our bleacher seating and let her run off some energy. We headed back over to take our seats and again comes the voice over the loud speaker letting us know the show was still going to be delayed another hour. (to this day we have no idea what happened) At this point I am realizing our toddler girl who's bed time is the same as the new start time for this event is not going to make it and not going to get to see any pretty lights...cue mommy melt down with big tears in my eyes I turned to Mr. A and said "let's just go" so we headed over to the car only to find the parking attendants had directed people to park so close behind us that we couldn't get out unless we jumped the curb. Oh at this point I should probably mention The A Family got a new car in August cue second mommy melt down I just stood outside of the car with tears in my eyes while my father in law and my husband inched our new car off the curb.

All I had wanted was a night of magic to kick start the Christmas season for my little girl instead I got bitter cold, poorly run productions, and potentially wrecking our new car. Luckily we were able to get the car off the curb without any damage but it was still annoying and everyone's Christmas spirits were definitely dampened. We were close to the downtown area in which I work and I knew there were some light displays in one certain area so I suggested we drive through there and at least Carys would get to see a few lights. Reluctantly Mr. A agreed and we drove down through the gorgeous lights displays of downtown Oklahoma City. As I sat in the car desperately trying not to let the evening be ruined by our sour luck, I suddenly heard Carys's sweet little voice exclaim "LIGHTS OOH LIGHTS, LOOK MAMA PETTY PETTY LIGHTS" my momma heart lit up in that moment as I realized it didn't take an over the top experience to delight my daughter it just took some beautiful light displays. So we drove through the lights and she oohed and ahhed and it was then that the happy tears came as I began to see Christmas through her eyes. But the best moment came when we pulled into our driveway and she saw our lights for the first time and exclaimed "LIGHTS OUR HOUSE LIGHTS, PETTY, THANK YOU" My little girl of not even two had thanked us for putting lights on her house. In that precious moment the realization came to me it's the simple things that matter most like making a child's face light up with some fairly simple light decorations hung on your roof.

I still have a packed calendar for the holidays but I'm trying to take it all in stride and realize I have many years of Christmas enjoyment ahead of me with our sweet girl.

Later Alligators...

Mrs. A