Simplifying Christmas

Growing up, Christmas was always my favorite holiday (of course). As I have gotten older, my love for it has continued. My main love languages are quality time and presents, and Christmas is full of those!

As Ben and I have become parents (and tried to blend my go-overboard personality with his more minimalist one), we've had to figure out how to "do Christmas" in a way that works for us. This is especially true of Christmas presents. Today I wanted to share a little bit about our journey to where we are now and what we currently do (which we love!).

The first year we were married, we had hardly any money, so we definitely didn't go overboard. We got each other a small present and were really blessed with generous parents on both sides. The next year, we had Ashtyn, but she was only three months old, we still had no money, and we had another very moderate but blessed Christmas.

The next year was fun because it was the first year Ashtyn was really able to participate in some of the activities (she was 15 months). I got excited and got her a few more presents, but we were really trying to keep our budget tight (we were making more, but saving a TON for our house) and we were living with Ben's sister at the time, so we had very little space for new things. It was another lovely Christmas. This was the year we tried doing three gifts modeled after the wisemen (for gold, something they really want; for frankincense, a more sentimental gift; and for myrrh, something for the body like clothes), but Ben didn't really like it (he felt he was too constrained trying to come up with something for each category.

The next year, we had Parker (who was 6 months) and Ashtyn was 2. I got so excited about Christmas. I started buying presents for Ashtyn in October and I honestly never really stopped. I decided to get her and Parker a new doll and some accessories for their dolls. And anything I could think of that would go with a doll, I got her. She just had so many presents ... On Christmas morning, we went to Ben's parents first, then came home to unwrap presents before driving to West Jordan for my family's party. We weren't rushed, but we also were on a schedule because of driving out. Ashtyn opened two or three presents, and then she just wanted to play. I managed to get her to open a couple more (it was like pulling teeth) and then I just gave up and opened them myself. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I learned it well.

The next year, we consciously scaled way back. Ashtyn was 3 and Parker was 1 1/2. We had just gotten into our house (which was basically Ben and my Christmas!), and I was sick with morning sickness. We got the girls one big gift (we got them each a bike) and stockings from Santa. It was the best Christmas morning we'd had together and I decided that's how I wanted to keep it--one big present for each child plus a gift for all the kids.

These are all the presents we have for this year. The box is about 2/3 way full of stocking stuffers from Santa. We budget about $50 per person for stockings (we do things like our favorite candy, socks or underwear, books, whatever the kids ask Santa for like ballet slippers or a locket, puzzles or games, a few inexpensive toys or crafts that I don't consider too junky. I really try to be intentional about what we put in our stockings and get less good quality items, rather than a bunch of cheap things. Santa also brings each girl a new outfit each year, which is part of the stocking budget). 

For the girls' main gift, Ben and I currently budget $50 for each girl. This year, Rylee's gift was cheaper, so we budgeted less. We try to get one big thing (for Parker, we got her more prince and princess figurines because she loves princesses and spends hours playing with things like that), but we actually got two things for Ashtyn. She asked for fairy figurines like Parker's princesses (she says she wants them, but she doesn't play with things like that very well), but I wanted to get her pattern blocks, because she loves things like pixel art or building with blocks. We found one set of each for $25, so we got both (what she thinks she wants and what we want to get her). 

We also get one gift for all the girls to share. This year we budgeted $30 for it and got them a map. This is something that they will be really excited for, but I'm also excited for it. They are always asking where places are and now I'll be able to show them on our map! (Last year we gave them Just Dance, for $25, just to give you an idea). 

Ben and I decide on our budget for getting each other a gift based off of the rest of the Christmas budget and how much we want to spend. Some years, we've decided on sentimental free gifts. Other years, we've done $100 each. This year, we decided on $50 each. Ben picked out his gift (he wants to get what he wants and enjoys looking forward to getting it without being surprised) and Ben is surprising me (I love the surprise aspect of gifts). 

We also do an exchange with a friend in Norway, where we send her Christmas gifts and she sends us some. We each have one to open from her each year plus some candy. 

And that's how we handle Christmas in our immediate family. While we have simplified, I don't feel any lack of presents. The girls have just the right amount to open and I still have the joy of finding, wrapping, and watching them open presents. If there's something I really want to give them outside their main gift, I can put it in their stocking, but because of our budget, I don't go overboard in that area either. It's the perfect balance for our family.

West Coast Cruise 2019

A couple weeks ago, Ben and I had the chance to get away and go on a four day West Coast cruise together. It was a lot of fun and I wanted to document our experience here.

Day 1 

Saturday, November 9

We started off super tired. We had a hard time falling asleep the night before and woke up at 4 am to drive out to the airport. We had some snacks in the car and I grabbed a breakfast sandwich from McDonald's. We made great time and made it earlier than the latest time we wanted to be there, so we were happy. 

Waiting in the airport

We parked with ParkNJet and that was really simple. We had a great experience with them. We paid online, so it was $5 a day and they had a free shuttle to the airport and back. We took the shuttle up to the airport and check in was really smooth. We had about an hour and half wait before boarding. We found our gate and read while we waited. 

Neither of us have flown a lot, so it was fun to fly out to LA. We both had audiobooks to listen to during the flight (Ben was listening to Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson and I was listening to David Copperfield). It wasn't a long flight and, unlike our honeymoon, we didn't have any layovers.

When we landed, we were starving. We decided to get our luggage and find food outside of the airport, but if we were to go back and change anything, this is what we would have changed. We would have grabbed food in the airport and then gone to get our luggage. Our luggage took forever to get unloaded and then it took us awhile to find somewhere to eat. 

We decided to go to InnN'Out, which was within walking distance of the airport. We had a big suitcase, with a roller, but it was kind of annoying, so we decided to take a shuttle that went partway there. It stopped at a place to find Uber, Lyft, or a taxi. We wanted to walk the rest of the way to InnN'Out, but we were literally trapped by a fence. It took us a minute to find a way out, but once we did, it was pretty simple to walk there. 

We ended up each getting two hamburgers and fries with a milkshake. The hamburgers were great, but the fries were truly awful. I'm not sure I've ever had fries that bad before. It was a hopping place, so we walked across the street with our food and sat in this beautiful tree park. It was close to the airport, so we got to watch the airplanes come in and out every few minutes. Every time one would come in, a huge gust of wind would follow a minute later. 

After our food, we headed to our airbnb. We walked back to the place where the shuttle had dropped us and took a Lyft there. It was a little early, but the host let us check in anyway. The place was really nice, a little apartment about two miles from the airport. We decided to take a break and just relaxed together until dinner. 

For dinner, we left our luggage behind (thank goodness! Next time we travel, we're going to find a better way to handle luggage for getting around) and walked about half a mile to a local pizza place. The pizza tasted more homemade than we would have liked, but it was still good and their salad was amazing. We stopped at a gas station on the way home and got some snacks for breakfast the next day. 

The rest of the evening, we relaxed at our airbnb. We took advantage of the fact that we didn't have kids with us and we watched a couple of really weird movies on Netflix. 

Day 2 

Sunday, November 10

The next morning, we slept in and then took an Lyft to the closest metro station. Then we took the train and bus to Long Beach, where our port was. 

Ben thought I was crazy to take a picture of this pidgeon 

for Ashtyn, but it was her favorite from our trip! 

We signed in, checked in our luggage, and then got lunch at a nearby food truck. I got chicken and steak tacos and Ben got a chicken burrito. Both were amazing. Then we went to check out The Queen Mary before boarding. Ben wasn't impressed, so we didn't stay long.

Then we checked into the cruise ship and checked out the ship while we waited for our room to be ready. We people watched on the Lido, grabbed a snack from the buffet, and then we headed to the serenity deck and Ben laid out in the sun while I read in my book.

Once our rooms were open, we went down there and got settled in. Neither of us were feeling the best (we woke up on Saturday morning with sore throats, and we had a hard time with both nausea and colds the entire trip unfortunately), so we rested in our rooms until the safety meeting. After the safety meeting, we went and watched the sail away party on the lido deck until dinner (it was an awkward half hour time period).

At dinner, we had a table set for ten, but only one other couple ever showed up. We really liked them and got to be good friends, so that was nice, though it was weird to have so many empty chairs every night. Their names were Linda and Collin, and they lived in LA. Linda worked at a pediatrics for trauma cases and Collin was a district attorney and had been married about a year (they were about our age). It was fun to get to know people whose lives are so different from our own. 

The first night, we got to try alligator, which I liked a lot more than the frog legs we tried on our honeymoon. The food at dinner each night was always good, but the food on the cruise overall was never as good as Celebrity cruiseline's. It was one of the most disappointing parts of the cruise to us.

During dinner the first night, I got feeling really sick, so we went back to the room and laid down. Our room was at the bottom center of the ship, so that helped a lot. After I was feeling a little better, we went upstairs to get dessert (they had a soft serve frozen yogurt we really liked) and then went out on the deck. It was beautiful, seeing the lights of LA in the distance at night, but it was also freezing. We didn't stay out there too long. 

Day 3 

Monday, November 11 

We tried breakfast in the sit down restaurant they had and weren't impressed. The wait was over twenty minutes before they even took our order and then they forgot several things. I also had a hard time eating their eggs, they must have put some sort of oil in them that made them really moist and I just couldn't eat them. After we finished our breakfast there, we went to the buffet to top off our breakfast. Ben got a really good omlet and I got boiled eggs. We went to the buffet for breakfast everyday after that. 

After breakfast, we took a little boat to port at Catalina Island. The boat made us both a little sick, but once it got moving, the trip was much better. We walked around the shops a little and found some shells to bring home for the girls. At 10:30, we did an excursion.

Our excursion was called something like, Undersea Adventure. We went into the bottom of this orange boat, which had windows to see through to the water. They took us around the reef and fed the fish, and we got to watch for sea life from the bottom of the boat. It was a really cool experience, but I wish we'd thought to take Dramamine, because it made us both really sea sick. We ended up having to go up top before the end of the trip and had to sit afterwards, just trying to not throw up. 

When we were feeling slightly better, we decided to try and find some food to help settle our stomachs some. We got fish and chips from the pier and they were so good. The fries were especially good, the best we had on the trip.

That helped us feel quite a bit better and we decided to get dessert at Scoops. I'd read excellent things about it online. I got a triple chocolate scoop of ice cream and Ben got an acia bowl (they serve those a lot in Brazil where he served his mission). Both were yummy, though nothing that special in my opinion. They were really, really busy, too.

We ate our treat on the beach and then headed back to the ship. We'd both taken Dramamine by this point, which I think helped with the boat ride back (though we didn't have to wait as long before moving, which also helped me). Ben gave up his seat to this grandma, so we got to know each other on the ride back. She was cute. 

On the boat, we decided to get some more food. We went to Guys' Burgers and I honestly wasn't too impressed with them. Their fries were very flavorful, and neither Ben or I liked them. I also put too much on my hamburger and couldn't finish it. 

We went back to our room and both ended up taking a nap before dinner. It was formal night, so we got all dolled up and went down to dinner.

After dinner, we went to a "PG" rated comedy show. We both enjoyed it, though it probably wasn't as family friendly in our opinion as theirs. We laughed a lot though and had fun. Afterwards, we tried to take some pictures together, grabbed a frozen yogurt (we never liked the desserts at dinner), and then went back to the room to relax together.

Day 4 
Tuesday, November 12

Tuesday, Ben's cold was a lot worse when he woke up. He tried taking some ibuprofen (we didn't have Dayquil, only NyQuil) and we went to breakfast at the buffet. Then we disembarked to Ensenada.

We had been to Ensenada before on our honeymoon and had a lot of fun. This time around was a bit of a disappointment. First of all, Ben being sick really dampened our experience. The heat made him feel nauseous and he had a hard time walking around, so we didn't feel like we could go off the beaten path again. And in Ensenada, you have to go off the beaten path; the tourist section is just so ... touristy.

We walked the tourist shops and found some little leather purses to bring back for the girls. Then we walked away from the tourist area and found a secluded little nature spot with a bench, where we sat and talked for a bit. Then we searched for somewhere close to eat, but we gave up on that and just went back to the ship.

We went to get burgers at Guys Burgers, but they weren't open yet, so we just sat and waited on the lido deck. I was having a really hard at that point. Between the food, feeling sick, and how great our first cruise was, this trip fell short of our expectations and I felt the disappointment of that hard Tuesday morning. I was also missing the girls like crazy by this point and wishing we could just go home.

The burger place opened and I didn't put as much on mine, so it turned out much better than the day before. It was a good hamburger, but I honestly don't know why people rave about it as much as they do.

After eating, we went up to the top of the ship and played miniature golf together. We had fun and I managed to win!

Then Ben wanted to rest, so we went back to our room until dinner. We managed to stay awake, which was really hard because we were so sleepy. We were worried about how we'd feel after napping, so we fought it. Dinner that night, the other couple didn't show up, which just added to my disappointment of the day. We ate alone at a table set for ten and I was having such a hard time.

After dinner, we went to the lido deck for our frozen yogurt for dessert and then went to another comedy show. It was a lot of fun again. Then we went back to our room and retired early.

Day 5 
Wednesday, November 13

The next morning, Ben's cold was still bad and mine was starting to get worse. We were also out of Dramamine (we got a lot more motion sick this cruise, we think because we were already feeling sick). So we got breakfast and then headed to the sick bay, where we got some cold medicine and Dramamine.

We decided to go check out some of the sea day activities. I dragged Ben to a towel folding activity, where we learned to make an elephant and a bulldog. It was pretty fun, though I think Ben thought it was weird.

Then we went to a Latin dance class and both had a lot of fun with that. We both enjoy dance a lot and we've been learning the salsa together this past year. The Latin dance we learned on the cruise was basically the salsa, just dancing solo. It was probably our favorite thing we did on the ship.

Ben wanted to rest after that, so he went back to the room while I went to the Dr. Seuss Parade (I wanted to get pictures for the girls and they did end up loving the pictures). Then I went back to the room and we both took a nap.

Dinner that night, the other couple were there again and we had a lot of fun talking with them. Then we said goodbye to them and to our server.

There weren't any activities we were interested in, so we went back to our room and relaxed together. Then we wanted more food, so I went and got pizza for me (the pizza on the ship was terrible though) and a hot sandwich for Ben, and our last bowls of the frozen yogurt.

Day 6
Thursday, November 14

Our last day was a looong day.

We decided to do the option of carrying our own luggage off the ship and we ended up being really glad we did that. We woke up and packed up, got some breakfast from the buffet, and then left the ship.

Our plan was to take the bus to the airport, but we saw there was a shuttle that went right there. We went over and asked how much, but they told us it was $30 per person. That was outrageous to us, so we decided to take the bus still. As we were walking away, the lady ran over to us and offered us two for one (we had complete walk away power and she really didn't have anything to lose in offering that to us, because our seats would have just been empty otherwise). We agreed and the shuttle took us to the airport.

Our flight wasn't until almost 5:00, so we sat and waited until we could check in. Then we checked in and got some lunch at the Habit Burger. Then we sat and waited some more. I got to video chat with the girls and they were all excited that we were coming home.

The flight home was uneventful and we got to our car again really easily. Then we started the long car ride home. We stopped in Heber for food, but not much was open, so we ended up getting Little Caesars. It wasn't really great, but it was food. By this point, neither of us were feeling good at all.

We ended up getting home after midnight. We both felt awful. We were actually supposed to travel to Blanding for a wedding the next day, but we felt so sick (and the girls were also sick), we ended up canceling that trip and just staying home to recover. We were sad to miss the wedding, but very glad  we made that decision as it was a hard next week.

The trip wasn't what we were hoping were. There were a lot of little things that contributed to that: our being sick, the cruise line (I would not recommend cruising through Carnival), the increased motion sickness, and us being different. One thing that really bothered us this cruise was the atmosphere of indulgence. There's a difference between enjoying yourself and indulging, and our cruise definitely had a problem with glorifying indulgence. I think we noticed it this time around because not only does Carnival have more of a problem with that (I've talked with others about it and they agree), but we're also different people now than when we went on our honeymoon.

The best thing about this cruise was that it was budget. We've looked back on our honeymoon as a golden memory our entire marriage and have wanted to do another cruise since then. We've tried planning cruises, not budget ones, and they never panned out. This time, we decided to slip a budget one in and I'm so glad it was on a budget cruise that we learned that cruises aren't actually our favorite way to travel the way we thought they were. Now, we feel more free to take other vacations, where we have more control over the length, distance, and cost, without wistfully wishing we were on a cruise instead. It's very freeing and we're excited for our future travel plans together.

A Christmas Thought

One of my favorite parts of Christmas since having kids is singing Christmas hymns to them before bedtime. This is especially true of Silent Night. Holding a baby, singing that song at Christmas time, brings me such an overwhelming feeling of peace. 

Last night, I was holding Rylee and she was laying on my shoulder. I was singing Silent Night, my favorite Christmas song, and feeling so grateful. 

As she lay on me, I thought about two years ago at Christmas time. I had just found out that I was pregnant with really. She was a surprise and neither Ben nor I were thrilled with the timing. We were moving, it was Christmas, and we had a cruise we had been planning on taking before having our next baby. 

Yet, there I was, pregnant and very, very sick. So sick that I simply couldn't enjoy Christmas. We did the minimum--set up the tree, wrap presents. We didn't do any of our other traditions. I didn't put up any other decorations. I felt miserable and couldn't really enjoy the Christmas season. 

The worst for me, though, was how horrible I felt while singing to the girls at night. I would hold them close and sing the same songs, but instead of peace, I just felt sick. Instead of loving Christmas and snuggling, I just wanted to finish getting them in bed so I could go rest. 

At the time, it was a really hard thing for me. It felt like a huge sacrifice. 

Now, I'm so grateful for that sacrifice and every other sacrifice I've made as a mother. I'm grateful for the pregnancy discomfort and the labor pains. I'm grateful for the sleepless nights and the nights spent cleaning up throw up. I'm grateful for the monotonous day in and day out that comes with having three such little kids. Even now, when I'm in the midst of it. 

Holding Rylee close, I couldn't help but think of those sacrifices and how grateful I am for each of my three daughters. And I thought of my Savior. 

My Savior, who sacrificed for me. 

I'm so grateful for motherhood. It has made me more like the Savior than I thought was possible. And I know that I have a long way to go. But I'm sure that motherhood never stops stretching, and I know that as I turn to my Heavenly Father and strive to be a Christlike mother, they will strengthen me in ways I can't even imagine now. 

I'm so glad we have Christmas, so we can remember the Savior. I'm so grateful for my kids, and that I can share Christmas magic with them. And I'm so grateful for the help I've received, the strength I've been given, in my journey as a mother.