Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Xmas Memories Old & New & Made up



The other day I was watching the Sound of Music movie & overall it's a feel good musical movie. But something that struck me were some lessons of climbing mountains in search for your dreams and getting through tough times by thinking of your favorite things.

This Christmas I hope that I've given my peanuts the gift of resiliency. A gift that will stay with them throughout their lives. I hope that I've set an example for them by showing them that when things change we re-adjust and move on. My wish for them is that when life things don't turn out how you want them to be we have to find the good in these moments and especially so during the Christmas season. I want them to focus on what they have and not what's missing or who's missing, even if it's me.

This time of year always brings back a flurry of child hood memories of the holidays. Some great, some not so great but either way it brings a nostalgia and longing for a time when things weren't so complicated. Mainly it brings memories of my dad and his love for the holidays. Each year Xmas was a time when I knew for sure I'd visit with my dad, not something that I could count on year round. I fondly remember my mom & grandma making hot chocolate with panettone on Christmas morning.  The holidays meant no school, many adventures with daddy and family traditions!

But rather than focus on people I miss or things that haven't turned out as I had hoped, I have made it a point to create fun traditions with my peanuts and exciting adventures. Maybe one day when things aren't going quite right for them they can look back on these memories & it will help them to smile.  I'm sure our many attempts to bake and decorate the house like it's Santa's place and this year, the added anecdote of a gingerbread house..is sure to make someone burst with laughter!!








I'm pretty sure Camila will not soon forget this parenting boo boo....I'm not sure why this slipped by us but Camila did not have a pic with Santa for her 1st Christmas last year. I hope she doesn't hold this over our head one day when she wants to stay out late. But this year I made sure we visited with Old St. Nick and I've come up with a good story for what happened to him in 2011. And it goes something like this...

Scary Santa...
It was the blizzard of the century kind of like the one when Rudolph the red-nosed-reindeer was discovered. We didn't know if & when the snow would ever let up. And even when if it did would we able to leave our home?!  We were cooped up for days and the news kept broadcasting that it was much too dangerous for Santa to make appearances for fear he might get stuck somewhere and not be able to get back to the North Pole to prepare for his Xmas deliveries. So he was nowhere in sight that year.  But Santa tried to make up for it the following year! And that's when we were able to bring you to visit with Santa for the first time.  However, it didn't go so well :(  turns out you were terrified of anyone in a white beard. But we tried.

So if one day you overhear me recalling this story with her please feel free to join in with some dramatic element of your own for the story. Perhaps you could add how you TOO remember missing Santa that year or how you didn't leave your house for weeks! My daughter's future therapist would thank you and so would mine.




This Christmas we didn't visit Grandma's house on Christmas morning as we normally would do. So as CEO of this household I hereby instated the "Martinez Christmas Breakfast!!" Special thanks to the Pillsbury dough boy who helped make this super easy :)

BEHOLD!!..Cinnamon roll Christmas Tree




And our biscuits & egg omelette casserole



The peanuts and I have been fortunate enough to have presents to open but I never take this for granted. I know that hard times can be around the corner & we may not always be able to inundate them with gifts. When Cati's excitement over a $3 puzzle was over the moon, I exhaled with gratitude because I know she will always be grateful for all things no matter how small. It helps to know that they can be content with just a nicely decorated breakfast or drinking out of a special Christmas cup.





So when the dog bites or the bee stings we can think of some of our favorite things like...

Singing Carols...



School  Christmas shows....





Christmas Parties...



Decorations...



Fancy cups...



Funny Balloons...



Visits to the city...





And things will never seem soooo bad.


MERRY CHRISTMAS 2012

Where did that scary Santa go???