The year my son first understood and anticipated Christmas was a year full of delight…. and a whole lot of stress.
His excitement that year was almost unbearable. One minute he was hugging me and telling me how much he loved me… and Santa Claus. The next moment he was having a full meltdown. I tried to be consistent in my parenting. I tried to be calm, collected and firm. But the excitement seemed to be building day after day regardless of what I did to prevent it. I even resorted to the time honored threat that “Santa is watching.”
As it approached my husband and I were sure that we were in for a truly long night on Christmas Eve. We were both certain that our little 4 year old wasn’t going to sleep a wink.
The day before Christmas Eve my husband said. “We’ve pretty much finished up our Christmas shopping. Let’s do something tomorrow that is going to wear Ben out.”
So we formulated a plan.
On Christmas Eve we didn’t run around shopping or finishing last minute anything. The time for that was done. Instead we packed up the car and took the kids up the canyon by our home.
We were loaded down with sleds and hot chocolate and HOPE.
Hope that our children would be so worn out by the end of our outing that they would sleep like babies on Christmas Eve.
We had a wonderful time. Time and again we flew down the hill. Time and again we climbed to the top again. By the end of the afternoon we drank our hot chocolate to warm up and headed home. My children’s frenetic energy of the morning was gone and my hope rose a little.
When we got home we gathered round the table and decorated cookies for Santa.
Instead of the big family Christmas party that was almost two hours round trip away, we opted to stay home that year. We made a simple but lovely dinner at home complete with our favorite British tradition of Christmas Crackers
By time we were done with our day something truly magical had happened. While our children were excited. They were calm. They were happy. They fell right asleep and they even slept until 7:00 am. The parents were up before the kids and waiting for them.
We loved that year so much, we’ve continued the tradition each Christmas Eve since. Each year we go sledding and stay home on Christmas Eve with just our family. I guess it goes to show sometimes the best traditions begins out of necessity.