Jason & Clarissa: Christmas in North Carolina

Today is December 27^th, 2 days after Christmas. What a wonderful Christmas day! Not just yesterday, but those thousands of years ago. This year Christmas was a little different for Jason and I. We saw it in a different light, and I’m so thankful for that. The days leading up to Christmas were pretty eventful as well…

Jason started working some crazy hours and so the week before Christmas, we got him in the morning for a couple of days. It’s amazing how fast mornings go, and then he’s off to Virginia to “make us money” as Carter would say. Carter and I made the best of our nights together though. Many of our plans to go somewhere or do something were vetoed by Carter and we watched a Christmas movie every night. During the day, we did lots of shopping, lots of story times, and trying to keep ourselves occupied and happy. By Thursday however, Carter woke up hacking up a lung and I understood why he wasn’t being as adventurous. I felt so bad that he would be sick for Christmas.

Carter and Daddy got to go to a Duke basketball game!

Story time with this silly kid

The Greensboro Science Center

The Greensboro Science Museum. He had his own baby he carried around.

At the Children's Museum in Raleigh

I love this little boy

On Friday, Jason had the day off and we had some errands to run in Raleigh. Our rental car was coming up for auction, and so we had to drive all the way to Raleigh, just to switch our car for a new one. Well, at first I thought it was ridiculous and a waste of our time, but turns out after all was said and done… we drove away with a 2017 Chevy Cruz with only 3 miles on it! That might not be a big deal to some people, but to us… we’ve only ever test driven cars with that low of mileage!

While there, we decided to go to the coolest, most massive, most inexpensive museum we’ve ever seen! We visited the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and it was completely free! 4 floors of all kinds of things about North Carolina! There were dinosaurs, fish, animals, reptiles, bugs (YUCK!), and a discovery room with all kinds of things for kids! It was crazy to think that we saw everything for FREE! If you’re ever in North Carolina, you need to check it out!

In our new car!

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Science

Saturday was our big day full of Christmas traditions. We woke up, hit the gym, and got ready for a fancy lunch at our favorite restaurant. This year we ate our Christmas Eve dinner at The Cheesecake Factory! I can’t believe we forgot to take a picture of our amazing cheesecake, but everything was perfect and delicious. I’ll have to wait another 6 months to go for our anniversary.

Waiting for our Christmas Eve dinner

Carter wasn't very happy.

After eating way too much, we waddled our way home. There we wrapped gifts, tried to play all of our lunch off, and I got to take a tiny nap. It was perfect. Then off we were again to Winston-Salem North Carolina, where a park named Tanglewood does the most spectacular festival of lights. It’s a park that is forever long. I think after about 2.5 (maybe 3) miles we were done. There were so many neat lights, music, and even a village named Smore’sville where you could stop for some photo opts and a bite to eat. We were still so full of our lunch, we had to skip the little village. The craziest thing about the drive through the lights, was that it was completely dark and 50 degrees outside! We had our windows rolled down for most of the ride.

The lights were amazing!

When we got home, it felt like it was time for bed. With it only being 7pm, we opened our Christmas PJs and watched The Nativity Story. We talked to Carter about the story all through the movie, and silly little kid didn’t really get it at all. Surprisingly he watched the whole thing. We skipped the cookie making for Santa before bed, since Santa already got his sugar fix for the week, and we all went to bed.

Christmas Jammies

He loves his PJs

Christmas morning, the first thing we heard was… “Mommy! Daddy! There’s a bike in here!!!!” by one very excited little boy. He was pulling us out of bed at a super early time of 8:30. Then the rest of the morning was filled with seeing what Santa brought us all, eating our favorite cold cereal for breakfast (it’s a tradition, and we all get our very own box we don’t have to share!), and rushing to get ready for church and out the door. We had a fantastic program at Church, and then hurried home quickly for present opening and visiting family via google chat. It was a wonderful day, and by the end of it we all had huge smiles on our faces, full tummies from our Christmas dinner, and exciting plans of playing with all our toys again.

He loves his helmet too!

He got Pjs from his Aunt. He likes them too!

He got a surprise present from Grandma and Grandpa

Christmas was wonderful, but I think it will forever be different at our house. The whole day I thought of our little Shanna. I thought about this being her first Christmas, and wondered what I would give to her. I thought about the cute little Christmas Jammies we’d get for her, and the cute pictures we’d get of Carter with his baby sister. Then I thought about how Christmas is all about a little baby. A little baby that was prophesied to come to earth to be a Savior to all people. I thought about how scared Mary was and about how she had to say goodbye to him when he was a lot older than Shanna. I thought about Heavenly Father, and how he loved Jesus and watched him go through all that he had to. I thought about how Jesus had to go through so many things alone. I thought about how this all affects me and my eternity. Because of this little baby, I will be with my family forever. Because of this little baby, I can be forgiven of the mistakes that I make here on earth. Because of this little baby, there is nothing I have to go through a lone. Because of Him I have been blessed far more than I could ever imagine. I will never be able to say that I am thankful Shanna passed away, but I am so thankful for the way it has helped me to see things differently and be more thankful for the things that I have been given.

Well, the rest of the week has been filled with lots of bike riding (well kind of, Carter has been a little scared), being outside in 70 degree weather, exploring new places, and enjoying every minute of being a family. We’ve really liked being here in North Carolina.