Christmas morning...

I slept in.


I can hardly believe I am saying this but it is 100% true!  And, it felt soooooo good!


I have had a life-long love affair with Christmas morning.  It started as a child.  My parents would let us wake them at 7 a.m. and my mom would hurry out to plug in the Christmas tree.  I even remember one Christmas when she woke us!  In college, I would make my younger siblings get out of bed... just because it was Christmas morning {I can still hear their moans of despair}.


I have carried this love affair for 42 years.  While I still love Christmas morning... 


...this year is different.  


We slept in.  I got up at 9:38 a.m. and have had a slow morning of enjoying my family and looking forward to friends coming to spend the rest of the day with us.  There is not a trace of wrapping paper on the floor nor are there gifts under the tree.  My kids, though, are enjoying new books and such.


Parenting is a journey of new discoveries.  Chad and I discovered one last night.  While playing Phase 10 with the kids at 10 p.m., one of the kids said "wouldn't it be great if we could open gifts as soon as it is Christmas... like at midnight?!"  Without many words but a great deal of unspoken communication, an agreement was made between the parents of this house... "why not?"


So we did... I think the greatest part was completely surprising our children... who think we say "NO!" to everything.


Today has been much talk of Jesus... His gift, our salvation.  We have talked about those who chose to live today in different ways and those who chose to honor the arrival of the newborn King differently.   We've had some great conversation and some quality time on this slow Christmas morning.


... perhaps a new tradition started when our 3 looked us at us dumbfounded when we said "why not?"