Thankful Thursday

Last year after Christmas I felt a little discouraged. Not by the holiday itself, because I LOVE Christmas. I love everything about it. It is definitely the most wonderful time of the year. But I was discourage by how I had gotten wrapped up in the commercial side of the holiday. Near the end as I was rushing to finish up getting presents for everyone, I realized I was just getting presents for the sake of getting them; not necessarily because my kids needed these things or really even wanted them, but so I could make sure everything was fair and even. I thought back to previous Christmases and wondered if my kids would even really remember what they got.

So, to try and make sure that did not happen again this year we had a family meeting early on in the year and all decided together that this instead of gifts, we wanted to give a memory. So we all decided to go on a family trip and the consensus was that this trip would be to Disney World and Universal Studios. The tricky part was picking out a time that would work with our busy schedule. We didn't want to go right at Christmas when it's really busy there, and we didn't want to go in the hot months. We left the family meeting with the idea that we would probably go sometime in early 2011.

Well, right away I knew that the kids had a long weekend over the Halloween holiday for teacher conferences so Dave and I booked everything for that time without telling the kids. We wanted it to be a surprise. Last night we set up a small Christmas tree and wrapped their park tickets in Christmas paper and make little travel packs for each of them. I made a yummy traditional Christmas breakfast and this morning we woke them up with Christmas music.

Sophie came down as we were finishing up things and in her sleepy stupor saw the Christmas tree and asked if it was Christmas. We told her that it was and to go wake everyone else up. She was so funny because as she was going back upstairs to get everyone she kept asking if she was dreaming. She was a little confused.

All of the kids were a little confused. They were excited to be opening presents, but didn't really understand what was going on. Finally they got it that would be leaving TODAY for the trip and then when they found out that we would actually be flying instead of driving, they acted like it was almost better than the trip itself. Needless to say we are all very excited and have a fun week to look forward to.

Here are a few things for which I am oh, so thankful:

1. Early Christmas

2. Surprises.
3. Yummy breakfast (Amish breakfast casserole and cinnamon pull-aparts).

4. Sheer joy (if you can't tell by the pic, Sophie and Maddie are jumping up and down after realizing that we would be flying instead of driving).
5. That my kids liked most of the things I had already packed for them.
6. Feeling a sincere gratitude from my kids. They have come up to me time and time again this morning saying how thankful they are for this opportunity.