(christmas) day in the life of a f/f wife

Last year I wrote about inescapable firefighting facts and this year I get to live what I wrote about . . . again.

I thought I was going to be just fine with it until last night all snuggled up next to my man opening gifts with his family and eating great food and knowing it was all going to come to a screeching halt and he would be working and I would be working, too while the rest of the world partied on.

Yep, little self pity tears rolled right down my cheeks.

I pride myself on how strong I am and that I'm independent and I can be by myself and do life for days and weeks on end alone. . .

. . . but. . . at the end of the (christmas) day, I'm still a girl and I still need my husband.

Of course I think men love it when their wives cry to see them go, which is really unfair, but I digress.

4:55am 

Yes, that is the time we packed our littles into our van and drove 63.4 miles to get home so that Daniel could start in on his 24 hour shift at MFD. 

For the entire 63.4 miles, Eli chattered in a high pitched tone about 

"Eli see fire engine! Eli see red fire engine!" 

The promised Christmas tour of the new red fire engine has been seared in his two year old mind since the moment he heard of it and the big day has arrived. 

"Eli see fire ah-partment!" x 27 

"Eli have hiccups!" 

rumble strip "What in the world?!" 

Ah. That 4:15 alarm was just a bit early. 

6:30

Eli is kissing his daddy goodbye and will proceed to bawl his head off watching Daniel drive away. It's a good thing he's not usually up at 6:30 am! 

9:30 

Lil bit of French pressed Starbuck's 

to kick start this: 

my contribution to the MFD Christmas dinner, two apple pies. 

10:00

And my lil peoples are up and at em - we celebrated Christmas as a family last Saturday but it's still Christmas, you know and you gotta eat special food on Christmas! 

11:30

Eli struggles to get into this hilarious dog costume from his grandma. If only it were a size larger. 

12:10 

Pies are done! 

1:45

When I was 18, I skinned a coon  to prove I wasn't a sissy and try and impress this super cute guy who liked to trap. I hated every minute of skinning that coon but hey, what can I say - Daniel doesn't think I'm a sissy anymore. 

People do things they hate to win the hearts of people they love, right? 

So today I took the kids sledding. 

It wasn't nearly as bad as the coon skinning. 

We had a blast.

I think he's giving a thumbs up.

There were a bunch of people on the golf course sledding hill.  Jacob told me:  "I kinda wanted to tell them all that I was about to go see my dad and the red fire engine, so they knew where we were going, but I didn't want to brag."

(Yeah, buddy, I know what you mean, I felt the same way.)

hey world, my hubs is working so your turkey doesn't burn your house down and if you break your leg on the sledding hill your Christmas won't be ruined!

The kids launched into an in depth discussion of which careers needed to stay open on Christmas Day. They have a list of four.

#1 Heating and cooling guys.  Well I suppose just heating.  But you get the idea.

#2 Plumbing.  That's just a necessity of life.

#3 All hospital jobs.

#Definitely firefighting, because, as Cambria put it, "at night you might want to light a candle!"  (And we all know what can happen when people light candles!)
 

3:00

The long awaited trip to see Dad.

Ahh I love him!  It stinks to be apart on holidays!

He's officially cool.

Sheer joy.

Even a little AFV. 

6:30

Tradition when Daniel is working a holiday: junk food out of the freezer case!

7:00

Happy Birthday, Jesus.

 

One of my favorite Christmas songs this year -  the kids and I listened to it on repeat today.  What makes it super cool to us is that the band shot this in my sister Lydia's city. . . it's in a little donut shop and we've eaten there.  So cool!  We even saw the piano.  :)  Yay Varsity Donuts! 

Merry Christmas!