December 25

As much as I love the hustle and bustle endemic to busy Christmases back home in Maryland, there's something uniquely tranquil about the holidays spent at home in California. (And yes, I used the term "home" to apply to both places because the older I get, the more I realize that both are my home. I'm a Marylanfornian.) 

Anyhow, during the California Christmases it's just us --just me and Adam and Abby and Isaac and Brady and a million memories of Logan-- and our trees and our stockings and our dinner enjoyed within the walls of our own home. No one ever gets dressed all the way (because with amazing new pajamas like Isaac's dog pants and Brady's dinosaur pants and Adam's plaid and me and Abby's --because matching is a must-- snow-themed microfleece rompers, why would you want to put on actual day-clothes?). And we take our time eating cinnamon rolls and emptying stockings and savoring the opening of every single present under the tree and taking goofy pics like this one (which was, for the record, their own design). It's us just being... us. And it's comforting and real and beautiful.

So that's what we did today. We laid around in PJs. We opened presents. We ate together. We laughed a lot. We played rounds of the Trivial Pursuit 2010-20 edition that we gave Abby (during which I rediscovered how bad I am at Trivial Pursuit) and Unstable Unicorns, which was under the tree for Brady. And there are other games still to be played in the week to come, because I unilaterally decided that this year, everyone would get a board or card game because memories of playing Clue and Monopoly with my mom and my brother Charlie and sometimes even my brother Bobby when I was a kid are sweet occupants of the back of my mind.

Yes, I'd say it was a good Christmas at the Wight house. So I'm thankful for the moments; for the smiles and the laughs. But most of all, I'm thankful for the birth of Jesus all those years ago and for how His life changed --and continues to change-- mine.