Even years are Christmas-in-Florida-years, as we alternate that with Thanksgiving trips. This Christmas was extra special, as it was Owen’s first!!! It would also be his first time on an airplane, and first chance to meet his Florida cousins, aunts and uncles. He is just about 4 months old now.

To prepare for our trip, we bought a car-top carrier, since we couldn’t even fit all of our luggage in the car to get to the airport, with another car seat in the back! Loading it was a bit tedious, but it did the job.

I had just finished my last day of work, having decided to stay home shortly after Owen was born, but I stayed through the end of the semester. So this was more than just winter break for me, it was the start of a whole new adventure! Of course, we wouldn’t really have a chance to settle into any kind of new routine until we got back. But it definitely felt a lot less stressful knowing I didn’t have school to go back and prepare for.

We had to fly through Cincinnati, changing planes with kids is always a pain, but it seems to happen more often than not when we fly to Florida. A little bit of excitement in the airport though – Lily lost a tooth! And it wasn’t just any tooth – it was the neighbor to her already-missing top tooth. Now she could legitimately sing “All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth”, lol!

Once there, the cousins had a great time meeting Owen and playing with Lily! Aunt Ovon and Uncle Cecil were there too. We had several days to hang out at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. The kids made Gingerbread houses, and Brian took them all on an adventure in the woods (near the house) where they built a fort! They visited it several times throughout the week making improvements 🙂 Owen even joined in the expedition in his off-roading stroller.

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We even got to see the lunar eclipse that happened while we were there – on the winter solstice in fact! We did our traditional ceremony of lighting a candle, and talking about our year. Then later, managed to wake up in the middle of the night to see the pale red moon outside. (And at least we didn’t have to freeze our tails off to do it, lol!)

Much of Christmas Eve was spent, by the kids anyway, playing in the pool. When night came, we did our traditional Christmas Eve feast and present opening, but added something new this year. We played the White Elephant game, where eveyone takes turn choosing a present, either from the pile of unopened ones, or takes someone else’s if they like it better! It of course led to lots of laughs and pranks, but everyone more or less ended up with something they were happy with in the end. And the kids had a blast tearing through their presents under the tree. Owen, unfortunately, slept through his first Christmas Eve festivities – it’s so hard to keep him up past about 7pm, and he hadn’t napped well all day either. But at least it allowed me to focus more on Lily.

Christmas morning found Santa’s loot – mostly Legos for Lily, and some assorted baby toys for Owen. More feasting would follow, and lots more swimming. It was a typical, laid-back Christmas Day, giving the kids plenty of time to play with their new toys and enjoy each other’s company.

The only drama of the day was with our flights – we were schedule to fly home early the next morning, but a major blizzard was hitting New York, disrupting air travel all over the country. During the course of the day, our flight was cancelled and re-booked 3 different times, and someone in the middle of all of it we got upgraded to first class!

So the trip home was a little roomier – but also a bit stressful, since the other first-class passengers, and even flight attendants, didn’t seem to thrilled about the fact that we had a baby up there. But we got lucky and he only fussed a little, and one passenger on the way out commented that he “wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought he would be”. I guess that’s a compliment??

Back home, we began settling in to life with me a stay-at-home mom. Lily was anxious to use the Build-a-Bear gift card that Santa had left in her stocking, and created her first Build-a-Bear, named Elizabeth. Then there was the arduous task of taking down the decorations – always dread that! But life looks to be a lot calmer from now on, at least hopefully so. And another successful trip to Florida is on the books!