So here goes................. I woke up on Christmas morning feeling tired after Christmas Eve celebrations with family and then waiting for the kiddos to be completely sound asleep before playing Santa. I prayed hard, knew I only had to hold it together for a few hours, and waited. Finally around 7:30 am (which is a sleep in for my crew), I heard little feet coming to my room.
Feeling the excitement radiating from the kids was fun and definitely boosted me! I decided that I wanted to be truly present while they were opening gifts. I was and it was an amazing blessing! Here is what I observed and experienced.
I proudly watched as my children were grateful for and excited about everything from the big gifts to the smallest detail. This reminds me of a very memorable moment from the Christmas of 2011. Ella opened an automatic Hello Kitty toothbrush and shouted, "Just what I wanted!" This was the most heartfelt reaction by far to any of the gifts all of the kids had received. I just love the simplicity of kids!
Anyways, done with my tangent :) This Christmas while I got quiet and intently watched my kids, I saw three distinct "gift unwrapping personalities" and I watched with wonder and saw similarities between how each child opened their gifts and their temperaments. It was a lot of fun!
Ella savored unwrapping by saving most of her gifts until after Mya and Cal had finished. She wanted to help and watch her siblings and experience all of the excitement with them before the climax of seeing what she received. She didn't want it to end! Ella was the Savoring Opener.
Mya was the fiery opener. She tore through her presents like the Tazmanian Devil. She couldn't get through them fast enough! She was done with all of hers and ready to get the toys out of the packages before Ella and Cal had gotten through two gifts. There was no savoring here, just pure unleashed excitement and focus! Mya was the Assembly Line Opener.
Cal was a slow opener who played with everything after he unwrapped it. He was so taken with everything that he saw and got completely absorbed in it that he didn't care about anything else. He was excited with the toys and boxes equally. He had an elaborate train garage and track set up pretty quickly! Cal was the Reluctant Opener.
What a blessing it is to truly be present for the precious moments of our lives! Please comment and share your precious moments, I would love to read them!
Below are some of our fun Christmas pictures from this year :)
I loved this.........isn't it neat how they can be so different? I love that in mine. A lot of similarities but a lot of differences and i think the differences can be complimentary to one another many times.
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