so this is christmas....

my fave shot of the day. the opposite of present fatigue!

And it WAS a good one. See, every year we have this resolution - that the amount of presents under the tree won't be a tiny bit sickening, that THIS is the year we're going to scale it back, take it easy, our kids are completely spoiled, blah blah blah. And somehow, every year we get to Christmas morning, and there's a pile of presents the size of Texas, and by the time they've opened one fourth of the stack, the kids have present fatigue - glazed eyes, crazy smiles, and "WHAT'S NEXT!" mentality. Ugh. It makes you want to throw up just a teeny bit.

But this year, it all came together. Because we got on a plane on the 15th of December, we skipped it. We skipped almost all of it. We didn't put up a tree, or lights, or decorations at our house in Oregon. We didn't go to the mall, and fight the crowds, and elbow people to get the last Buzz Lightyear talking whatever. We just....got on a plane! And we told the kids this was their gift. And pretty much, they were okay with that.

We did a tiny bitty bit of shopping at a super cute store in downtown Haliewa called The Growing Keiki, and then we went for ONE trip to target. One. That's it. The kids each got their very first gaming device - and I'll pause now for all the stones and torches to be thrown. In our defense, my 7 year old has never once owned a video game, and we've decided not to own one for our family. Mostly because I'm pretty sure it would be impossible for them to fight their father off long enough to use it. So Jack got a Nintendo DS, and Aidan got a Leapster with a Star Wars reading game. And a few books, and some body boards. Chloe got a new baby and some hair pretties. And that's it! Shawn and I didn't buy presents for each other, although we did splurge on a getaway for a few nights. (coming later...)









We were done opening presents in like 20 minutes flat, the kids were ACTUALLY excited about what they got, and then we hopped in the bus and headed out to watch the 30 foot surf break in Waimea Bay. Now, our bright idea was shared by about 47 million other people - so it was a bit of a long trip. Like an hour and a half, to drive what usually takes about 20 min. Mimi taught Aidan how to play "go fish," Jackson read a book, Mama read a book, and everyone was pretty much happy. And when we got there it was beautiful, and dramatic, and we even scored a super choice parking spot in a totally cut-throat parking situation. Generally, a great day. We got home too late to cook the ham we were planning on, so we had some snacks and cheese and went to bed. Christmas, over, done, and pretty darn easy and fun. The best part? When we get home - I HAVE NO DECORATIONS TO CLEAN UP!











Oh, and last thing: the BEST presents of the year, by far, were the handmade, hand drawn books that Jackson created for everyone in the family. Each of his siblings, and all the adults got a personalized story for them. Yeah. I pretty much wanted to bawl. But I kept it together, seeing as how it was Christmas, and I didn't want to frighten the children.