{"id":314,"date":"2009-12-29T20:17:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-29T20:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/2009\/12\/merry-christmas-2\/"},"modified":"2018-04-21T17:22:40","modified_gmt":"2018-04-21T17:22:40","slug":"merry-christmas-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/2009\/12\/merry-christmas-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas!!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_EzNMDgf7WQE\/SzplRhVD3RI\/AAAAAAAAEtE\/rqU1QT6QpFE\/s1600-h\/12-25-2005%2BCHRISTMAS%2B025.JPG\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5420756453172698386\" style=\"DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/almostjuliet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/12-25-2005-CHRISTMAS-025.jpg?w=628&#038;ssl=1\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_EzNMDgf7WQE\/SzplRd4bFxI\/AAAAAAAAEs8\/GQaSVaGsPlc\/s1600-h\/12-25-2009%2B103.JPG\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5420756452247279378\" style=\"DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 213px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/almostjuliet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/12-25-2009-103.jpg?w=628&#038;ssl=1\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_EzNMDgf7WQE\/SzplQ2mM7sI\/AAAAAAAAEs0\/-B_NKi1PZl4\/s1600-h\/12-25-2009%2B096.JPG\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5420756441701871298\" style=\"DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 213px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/almostjuliet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/12-25-2009-096.jpg?w=628&#038;ssl=1\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_EzNMDgf7WQE\/SzplQlOA28I\/AAAAAAAAEss\/jX8eWtzzBD4\/s1600-h\/12-25-2009%2B079.JPG\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5420756437037013954\" style=\"DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 213px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/almostjuliet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/12-25-2009-079.jpg?w=628&#038;ssl=1\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_EzNMDgf7WQE\/SzplQAEfCuI\/AAAAAAAAEsk\/sVeUOUHFOlw\/s1600-h\/12-25-2009%2B066.JPG\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5420756427064937186\" style=\"DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/almostjuliet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/12-25-2009-066.jpg?w=628&#038;ssl=1\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Christmas morning was crazy! I&#8217;m not gonna lie, there was a TON under the tree for Charlie to open. I thought I scaled it down this year (which I did), but it still felt like a lot. Maybe it&#8217;s just her age&#8230;she got overwhelmed about halfway through her stocking, and that wasn&#8217;t even the beginning. We ended up &#8220;misplacing&#8221; some of the gifts that <em>we<\/em> had bought her, and I&#8217;m glad we did because the gifts from family stood out, as they should. <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The biggest hits were a life-sized penguin (from Santa), a Little People &#8220;Racin&#8217; Ramps Garage&#8221; (from Auntie Janet), and her very own Camelbak water bottle (because she&#8217;s always stealing mine).Vann and I had all these grand plans for our first solo Christmas morning, but alas, not many of them panned out. By the time we even got to stockings\/presents it was 11 am and past breakfastime. Vann kept his part of the deal and whipped up a delicious savory eggs benedict, but I&#8217;m afraid my monkey bread recipe is still sitting out on the kitchen counter, as we speak. I just couldn&#8217;t tackle it that day.It was very strange being &#8220;alone&#8221; on Christmas. I am used to &#8220;doing Christmas big&#8221;&#8230;I still get a Santa and I&#8217;m 31! This year, as I&#8217;ve said before, we were and are in survival mode, and it sort of felt rushed and unorganized (NOT for any lack of planning\/effort on my sweet hubby&#8217;s part).  I know that Vann and I will look back on this messy Christmas and laugh at all of the chaos and piled-up laundry. But, who can argue the magnitude of God&#8217;s blessings on our family. I know that when I look at my two beautiful girls, and I am eternally grateful!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christmas morning was crazy! I&#8217;m not gonna lie, there was a TON under the tree for Charlie to open. I thought I scaled it down this year (which I did), but it still felt like a lot. Maybe it&#8217;s just her age&#8230;she got overwhelmed about halfway through her stocking, and that wasn&#8217;t even the beginning. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/almostjuliet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/12-25-2005-CHRISTMAS-025.jpg?fit=320%2C213&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1801,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/1801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}