The Best Christmas Yet!

It was one of my very favorite Christmas memories of all times! It may not be possible to put the feeling into words, but I will attempt to share it with you.

It all started with the realization that this would most certainly be the last Christmas that our entire family would spend together for many years, if not the last time ever. Nothing sinister, but we would see many major life changes in our blended family within the coming year.

Bailey and Cassidy were both to be married the following summer. Bailey and Nathan were moving to Alabama. Blake and Madison were also moving back to Alabama. With Cassidy’s college graduation the following year, she and Ben would likely move out of the state to attend graduate school. Brandon was in the planning stages to move to Georgia in order to further his acting career. Perry, following his high school graduation would set sail for the Naval Academy and Owen was only one year behind him. That meant that all but one would potentially be moving away in the coming years. Thankfully Michelle and Blaise had no plans to leave the great state of Oklahoma!

We didn’t know the full extent of how much would change in the coming years, only that it would be unlikely that we would have all seven of our children and their families in the living room to celebrate Christmas together anytime in the foreseeable future.

That realization spurred my desire to make Christmas something special and unforgettable. It was decided that we would share a homemade Christmas. The kids were given the opportunity to choose which sibling they wanted to make a gift for that year. It worked out great! They did a fantastic job being creative, thoughtful and personal with their gifts.

Without going into detail about each one, just be assured that I was impressed and moved by the gifts that were unwrapped that cold December day.

Dane and I joined in by making baskets for each of the children as well. I gathered family recipes and photos to go with them to create a family recipe book and Dane made homemade Venison jerky from his successful hunting season. Those and some other items were included in the baskets.

It wasn’t the actual gift itself that made the exchange special, but the time and thought that went into each one.

Dane and I surprised the kids with eleven wrapped gifts– enough for each of our children and their spouse or fiancé to play a game of dirty Santa.

Side note: When you have a crazy last minute idea to do this, it helps to have a good friend (thank you Shryln) to run around during lunch with you on the hunt for nice gifts under $25! We came up with some pretty nice gifts! Even the silly game of surprise dirty Santa was fun and memorable.

Maybe I actually can pin point why this was the greatest Christmas after all.

We were a real family that day. The kids didn’t choose their biological siblings to create and give a gift, in almost every case, they picked a step sibling instead. As we opened gifts and laughed and hung out that day, maybe more than any day before or since, we felt truly blended as one.

When you live in the brokenness that is a step-family, you have to grab hold of those moments, seal them in your heart and burn them in your memory. There will all too soon come a day in which you feel discouraged and down and need to be able to pull up that memory or feeling to allow hope to rise to the top again.

If you are anything like me, you long for times of family wholeness and you probably do your best to set the stage for perfect blending. Truth is, we have very little control over it at all. Sure, we can plan and try our best to include everyone and remove as much stress as possible. At the end of the day, it is out of our control.

That makes the moment all the sweeter! When things line up just right and everyone is engaged and participating, even if only for the day, it is a thing of beauty!

I would like to believe that we will one day all be together under one roof again to celebrate the birth of our Savior, but I will forever be grateful for that Christmas we shared in December of 2016.

Until next time, Step Gracefully!