Yesterday was Christmas. Christmas has always been my favorite time of year, but it just wasn't the same for me this year. To be honest, it lacked much of the excitement that it usually has for me. With all that has been going on recently with my pregnancy and my mom's cancer diagnosis and everything, it just hasn't felt quite as "real" this year. The Christmas music was playing on the radio, and the Christmas movies were showing on TV, but nevertheless, it just didn't really feel like Christmas to me. My mind has just been focused on too many other things, and a lot has been different for Christmas this year. It has been a very humbling experience for me, to say the least.
This year, Jordan and I did a "hand-me-down" Christmas for Rylee. With another baby on the way, it's very important to us that we save as much money as we can to put towards our upcoming hospital bills, etc. Although my husband works VERY hard to provide for our family, and the Lord is ALWAYS faithful to provide our needs, we're on a pretty tight/limited budget once we get our bills paid. There's just not much of anything left over right now for gift-purchasing and things like that. And that's okay. Sometimes I have to remind myself of that, but it really is okay. We have all we need and SO much more, and we are blessed beyond belief. However, it was still pretty hard on me when I realized we wouldn't be able to afford to "do" Christmas this year. Since becoming an adult and being responsible for my own finances, I have realized just how blessed I truly was growing up. Every Christmas, there was never a doubt in my mind that I would have presents under the tree. Not just one or two presents, either. Don't get me wrong - my parents were always good about keeping their gift-giving on a realistic, reasonable, affordable level. We never got all the DVD players and iPods and laptop computers and $100 name-brand shoes and all the other fancy things that my friends were always getting for Christmas. But my brother and sister and I each had several nice presents to open every year. That was reality for me back then. And it was good. And I always took it for granted. Reality for me now is different. It was hard for me to accept the fact that I wouldn't be able to buy Christmas presents for my husband and our little girl and our families. It was hard for me to know that our families would be getting us gifts, but we would have no gifts to give them in return. It was hard for me to look at our tree with no presents wrapped underneath it. It was hard for me to picture waking up on Christmas morning, knowing that my little girl wouldn't have any presents to open. And it was hard for me to realize how upset I was about all of that when I know good and well that Christmas is NOT about presents. Not to my family and me, anyway. We were given the ultimate gift in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, it was very hard for me to come to terms with all of it. Technically, COULD we have gone out and bought presents for everyone? Yes. But we would've had to pull from savings to do it, and we know that we have a more important need for that money right now. Ultimately, we just had to make the difficult decision to discipline ourselves and not spend it. As I mentioned earlier, though, the Lord is always faithful to provide for us, far above and beyond what we need, even, and He did in this case, too. A few months ago, a sweet older couple that Jordan used to go to church with gave us a BUNCH of stuff for baby Ryan. They have two young grandsons, and they literally had a storage unit FULL of boy clothes and baby/toddler accessories of all kinds. We met up with them, and they told us we could take anything that we needed or wanted. They even gave us a crib for Baby Ryan. We were so overwhelmed by their generosity. Among the things in the storage unit were several tubs of toys and a three-in-one Fisher Price tricycle. Jordan and I looked through all of the toys and found a few that looked like they would be fun and educational for Rylee. So, we cleaned them up, and that was our Christmas to her. We also cleaned up the tricycle and decided it would be her gift from "Santa Claus". At first, it was still a little hard for me to know that we would be giving our child "used" toys for Christmas, but over time the Lord gently reminded me how blessed we were to even have those to give her. There are SO MANY precious children all over the world who didn't receive any gifts at all yesterday. My child is so fortunate to have gotten the gifts she did, even if they weren't brand new and still in boxes. I am thankful for the lessons the Lord taught me this Christmas, and for the ways He used this experience to humble me and remind me what is most important in life. We are so blessed.
I wanted to post the few pictures I took on Christmas Eve/Day. Of course I'm not in any of the pictures since I was the one taking all of them, but that's alright. I do wish I had taken pictures with my family when they came over yesterday afternoon/evening to celebrate with us, but of course I didn't. Oh well. This was our Christmas:
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| Daddy and Rylee on Christmas Eve |
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| Rylee sitting in front of our tree on Christmas Eve, watching the train go around |
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| Rylee on Christmas morning |
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| Rylee and Daddy on Christmas morning |
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| Rylee playing with her "new" toys |
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| Rylee loves her presents! |
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| Rylee checking out her tricycle |
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| My sweet hubby surprised me and bought this Willow Tree figurine for me to add to my collection. |
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| I was trying to take a picture of her Christmas outfit, but she wouldn't stay still! Silly girl! |
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| I was trying to take a picture of her Christmas outfit, but she wouldn't stay still! Silly girl! |
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| my precious little girl |
We had a great day, and I'm looking forward to next Christmas. It's hard to believe Rylee will be two-and-a-half years old by then, and Baby Ryan will be just shy of a year old! It should be a fun Christmas to say the least!
On a totally separate note from Christmas, yesterday also began my 38th week of pregnancy. Even though I'm technically not due for two more weeks, I seriously can't believe I'm still pregnant. NOBODY - including myself - thought I'd make it this far. I guess Ryan is following in his big sister's footsteps and proving everyone wrong as to when he is going to decide to make his grand debut into this world. Normally I would've gone to the doctor today for a check-up, but the offices were closed today since it's the day after Christmas, and the soonest my doctor will be able to see me this week is Thursday. So, unless I go into labor between now and Thursday, I'll be headed back to the doctor for what will most-likely be my very last appointment before Ryan is born. I'll be having another ultrasound done to see about how much he weighs now, so I'm anxious about that. Apparently he's a pretty big boy, so it should be interesting. As of right now, I'm tentatively scheduled to be induced on January 3rd, but we'll see if that changes on Thursday. I will do my best to post an update after my appointment, but for now, I at least wanted to share my belly picture from yesterday. Here's my big ol' baby belly:
Getting BIG, huh? Like I said, I'll try to take a minute and post an update after my doctor appointment on Thursday. I have also taken several pictures of Ryan's nursery and other things that we have done in preparation of his arrival, so I'll try to post those soon as well. Until next time...
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