This year’s Christmas holiday had us on the road for 14 days. While gone, we did rounds to both the Anderson and Walston households, took a side trip to the Walston Cabin, and then Steve and I took a mini-trip to Las Vegas. You could say that we are crazy, or you could just chalk it up to plain old garden-variety, family-related holiday travel. When it comes to holidays and family, this is just what you do.

Each year, Christmas with Stella gets more and more fun. This year was the first year that the concept of Santa even registered on her radar. I’m still not sure that she completely understands how the whole puzzle fits together, but she was an excellent sport about playing along. I may actually take her to see Santa next year – but no promises. Uncle Scott even made her some reindeer food to sprinkle out on the front yard. (It was made of oats and glitter and was consumed – in entirety – by Lily who then left beautiful and sparkly presents all over the lawn the next day.)

Although we received many, many wonderful gifts, one of the most touching moments of my entire Christmas season was receiving a bag full of hand-made gifts from Stella. When I went to pick her up at school on the last day before break, she excitedly handed me a blue gift bag with a little note attached addressed to Mommy and Daddy. As we were walking out to the car, she excitedly explained to me how she had wrapped them all by herself with paper and tape. Her enthusiasm and genuine excitement in explaining that these were her Christmas presents to us immediately made my eyes start to water.

I have always remembered something Annie once said about her mom. “I could have handed her a stick, and she would not only tell me how much she loved it, but that it was the most beautiful stick she had ever seen. And she’d mean it.” After meeting her mom, I have no doubt this is absolutely true.

Later that night, as we opened all of our gifts to each other, Stella ceremonially presented us with her little blue bag. Inside were two small balls of tissue paper bound together with about 6 feet of scotch tape. In the paper we found a small, decorated baby-food jar with colorful paper glued all over it and a tea light inside, an orange studded with cloves, and a little yellow fleece scarf. “Look Mommy, I made these for you and Daddy. Do you like them?”

To which, I said, “They are beautiful. I love them.” And, with all of my heart, I couldn’t have meant it more.

(click on photo to see entire set)