By Allison Spence

Oh the holidays, excitement, joy, family, friends…scheduling every second, minute, and hour of every weekend.

The moment we had Grafton, we quickly realized our holidays would never be the same. It was no longer last minute shopping with Garrett, drinking hot cocoa on an Atlanta rooftop, and decorating our Christmas tree with newly wed ornaments. It became when will we see Santa? What weekend? What mall food will we split while standing in line? What outfit is he going to wear? And so on.

Just about the time we’ve finished every holiday family activity, sat on every Santa’s lap, eaten every white chocolate covered Oreo, we have to pack our suitcases. Because what’s Christmas without traveling? Garrett and I rotate between 5 outfits these days so our suitcases are easy peasy lemon squeezie.
However, Grafton’s suitcase is particularly tricky, it’s a lot more than just clothing, socks and shoes. It’s sippy cups, baby monitor, white noise machine, sheets and blankets for the pack n play, the actual pack n play itself, diapers, wipes, and holy cow I’m stressed just thinking about it.

So why do we do this every year? Why do we lose the meaning of Christmas just to stress about every last minute gift, event and family member we forgot about?

Because we love it.

We love the chaos of family members filing into the house one by one. We love when a niece or nephew picks their nose then shoves their fat little hand in the bowl of Red Hots to place the nose on every reindeer cookie. We love sneaking candy canes off the tree in the morning for breakfast. We love drinking someone else’s coffee by accident because it’s Christmas and we all have to have matching mugs. We love the half awake photo at the top of the stairs our parents still force us to take.

So everyone, put on your big girl and boy panties and buckle up because while the holidays are stressful, they’re every bit as magical.

Next year I’ll have two babies running around on Christmas morning, two babies screaming in photos with Santa, and two babies learning to adapt to the chaos of the holidays. And I will love every second, minute, and hour of every weekend.