My favorite kind of days are the days where it is just my husband, my son, and me. We don’t have those days often anymore. Weekdays don’t really count for that. Jason gets home around 6. I am here if I don’t have class, but it is the evening. Dinner is being rushed because sometimes Jack is cranky around dinnertime.
What I am talking about is an entire day, usually meaning a Saturday or Sunday, where we have nothing specific to do. We have no guests coming by, we do not have a party to go to, major errands to run, house shopping to do, etc. Those are rare days lately. Between house shopping, which Sundays are our free day to do that, my classes, and family obligations, we rarely come across an entire free day. Yesterday was an exception. We had nowhere to be. We could take our time in the morning, we could go about things as we saw fit.
Jason and I decided it would be a good day to go see Santa. When Jack first woke up I asked him if he wanted to see Santa. He said, “no. Milky.” I asked several times, he always said no. He did, however, want some milk. I told Jason about it. He even tried asking Jack. No no no. So we were maybe going to let it be. After he got some good milk drinking in I decided to ask again. His answer was different. Off to see Santa it was.
We didn’t go to a big mall. We did that last year and we were in line for two hours. I am serious. I knew there was no way he was staying in line for two hours this year. It would have been a nightmare. Thankfully our local Patch wrote an article about where you could see Santa in the area. We found the perfect place. We waited in line for 5 minutes, only one family ahead of us. There were no fees to take a photo. You could take your own! What?!?! They usually charge an arm and a leg at the mall, at least last year it was very expensive where we went. Santa asked me first if Jack was hesitant about Santa. I said we will see, I am not sure. He never cried but got a certain distance away from Santa and stopped. Santa said, “How about we do this. Mom you hold him and Dad will take a photo. Dad then you hold him and Mom will take a photo.” He really did not want Jack to cry. How neat! Halfway through Jason taking photos another family walked up. Santa then recruited them to take a family photo of us instead of switching out. No tears at all! We got a lovely family photo with Santa.
He even gave Jack a certificate that he is on the nice list. My husband was blown away by Santa’s handwriting He couldn’t stop talking about it. Santa must know calligraphy very well. All in all it was a perfect trip. I cannot give enough praise to this location.
waiting for Santa
Had to show Santa his cars, of course!
Family
good list
We were able to take our time yesterday. It was nice that it was just the three of us having a nice family day together. In this busy world those can become rare. I know next weekend we are swamped! This week we are swamped. Starting with swim lessons this morning. It is not that we don’t like having things to do and people to visit. We obviously enjoy it, since most of our time is consumed by that. However, sometimes you need those family unit days. To take a step back and just spend time together. You don’t even have to leave the house. If it were not Christmas time we may have hung out at home having a jammy day. Maybe we would have gone to the Children’s Museum, but it doesn’t matter what we did, all that matters was the time we had together as a family.
So here is to the beginning of a super busy week, as usual! I am glad we slowed down a little yesterday and just enjoyed time together. My husband and I even did something we rarely do these days, caught up on a TV show together! We had only watched the first episode of Homeland this season. We watched several yesterday.
Do you savor just “family-time” days? Do they occur regularly or are the more infrequent? What is your ideal family time day?
Nicole M. VandeBoom 