It was our smallest, and most relaxed that I can remember.
Like the Insta photo says, it was one of our "smallest" (read: least expensive) Christmases. For Emma's first Christmas, she only received a car seat (her convertible) and Fisher Price Sea Horse. It was all we could afford and I found myself making up for it in the past few years. I never spent a lot, always getting things at major discounts but this year I really wanted to focus on being with my kids, rather than gifts for them. We spent less than $100 on each kid. Most of the gifts were blogging perks and the others were at super discounts. Instead, we funneled money into our "fun account".
The first weekend of December, the kids and I went to Provincetown for the weekend with my Grandma, Mom, and sisters, and walked on the beach, went shopping, and ate lobster and chowder.
It's such a relaxing way to spend a weekend!
The following weekend Emmalee and I went to New York City for the night. My youngest sister joined us for a girls night! I've been meaning to blog the whole trip and just haven't. It was so much fun. We got to NYC bright an early on Saturday morning, around 9:30 am, parked the car, dropped our luggage off at the Broadway @ Times Square Hotel and headed into Times Square. From there we walked to Central Park where we browsed the pop up holiday shops, played on the playground and walked over towards the Plaza hotel.
We stopped at the Plaza Hotel to visit the Eloise giftshop, grabbed some macarons from the dining hall and made our way down Fifth Ave towards Rockefeller Plaza stopping to see all the window displays.
We did a quick run through Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes and walked back to the hotel to check in and drop off our stuff! After a little rest, we ventured back to 5th Ave for the American Girl store, Sephora, and dinner. The hotel was perfect for our get away and we checked out after eating a complimentary breakfast and headed home. Emma spent 30 minutes asking when we could go back and if we couldlive in New York City so I think she loved it.
Our third adventure was to the Nutcracker at Providence Performing Art Center.
Emma is big into ballet right now and this was perfect. She was in awe the whole show and 6th row seats were amazing!
Our fourth adventure was to Edaville Railroad in Carver.
The whole post is in that link but a family night of rides, Santa, cookies and Christmas lights was perfect!
And our final December adventure was to Disney on Ice in Providence!
$15 opening night tickets meant it was totally affordable, and like always, I invited my youngest sister to help play babysitter. I love my husband and love that he works as hard as he does for us. I also love that my sister is such a handy babysitter. :)
We brought Ty with us and had no clue how he would do, but he was dancing around to each song! It was so cute!
Our December was amazing. Even my school vacation has been so relaxing. We have gone shopping a few times, cleaned rooms in the house, but really honestly, we've been in pjs all week and I love it. While I love the Christmases that we've been able to give our children over the past few years, this one was my favorite. I didn't stress about gifts for my children, or treats for work, or even spending money on decorating the house. I focused on my family. My kids. I was present instead of giving presents.
