Ho, Ho, Home for Christmas

This year we spent Christmas in our own home for the first time ever. It was a mixture of emotions, as it was exciting and happy, but also nerve racking and stressful. Just like most years, it seems like Christmas took forever to get here, then December rolled around and before we knew it, it was all over.

As a reminder, and news for those you may have missed it, we moved into our new home on September 21, 2022. I began my new job on Monday, September 26, 2022. So needless to say, that first week was a whirlwind of its own.

We were then thrust into Halloween season, followed by a brief null of November, which included Thanksgiving. During this time period, we tried desperately to get moved in, start unpacking, as well as get familiar with our new town and its surrounding area.

I can recall being a kid and the time from Halloween to Christmas took forever! Seemed like there was so much time to decorate, bake cookies, participate in Christmas parties, go to the movies, and so much more. Now as an adult, I wonder where all that time went? I feel like we shopped a bit for our house, unpacked a few things, and it’s all finished with.

Moving into a new house late in the year certainly has the drawback of competing with the holidays. Not something we even thought of as our move-in date approached. I feel like we started to unpack, bought a few items, made a few items for furniture, and then had to place it all on hold for a month to celebrate Christmas. Let’s not forget, celebrating Christmas includes decorating the house.

Just as we’re trying to get our footing in the new house, we also need to track down our Christmas decorations and unpack those. Many of our items require a swap-a-roo. For example, I have a set of pint glasses theme to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I bring them out every year for Christmas and replace our normal set of pint glasses. The Christmas ones come out, and the normal ones get packed away for the season. This way we don’t have an abundance of glasses. We do this with several other items to save on space. So, for us this year, it felt like we just unpacked our “normal” glassware, only to pack it up again and unpack the Christmas stuff.

Now don’t get me wrong, we enjoy decorating for Christmas, but the timing of all this made it feel like extra work. It also consumed our garage space. I recently built a work bench in the garage so I can work on projects for the house. There was plenty of space until we had our last 1-800-PackRat container dropped off, which contained our Christmas décor. Once this unit was emptied, any and all of the remaining space was gone. It’s difficult to even walk in the garage at the moment.

Marzz’s other sister and mom flew into Orlando and are staying with us for Christmas this year, along with her other sister, who has been here on and off since October. Maribel, the sister who just arrived, has been great since she went to culinary school and has offered to cook for us in exchange for letting her stay at our house. She’s also been helpful around the house, assisting in cleaning and taking care of our dog when we need it.

Speaking of the dog, Miracle, he turned 15 years old on Christmas day; hence his name, Miracle. He truly is a miracle at this point and although he cannot hear or see very well, and has trouble getting around, he is in good spirits and is eating, drinking, and doing his business without any issues. It’s difficult to see him aging so much, but we’re grateful for the time we have with him.

We took part in Christmas parties at each of our respective places of work, both officially and unofficially.

For my work, they hosted a Christmas party for the corporate employee’s which was held inside Universal Orlando Park. None of the attractions were operating for our party, but instead they had a catered dinner, open bar, and park characters roaming around for pictures. I thought the party was nice but was missing some energy, like live music perhaps? But otherwise, we had a great time.

For Marzz’s work, we attended the Very Merry Christmas Party held at the Magic Kingdom Park which was also open to paying guests. My niece joined us, along with Marzz’s other sister. We had a good time riding rides, watching the parade, and eating the complimentary cookies and hot chocolate provided at various stands throughout the park.

In addition to the Christmas parties, we visited the town of Celebration to look at the Christmas lights and roam the quant town square. They have a large tree and an artificial ice rink setup, along with “snowfall” at specific times during the evenings. It made a nice evening out to enjoy the cooler temperatures, eat some food, and get into the Christmas spirit.

As for cooler temperatures, it sure has been. In fact, some of Florida’s coldest temperatures ever recorded. We have seen lows in the 30’s! They have even shut down Volcano Bay water park several days because its just too cold. Very unusual for Florida, but I must say, it sort of makes us feel a bit more at home. Perhaps a way of easing us into our new home here in Central Florida.

Marzz has taken her family to Epcot, Magic Kingdom, and Animal Kingdom, utilizing her perk of being able to get guests in for free. I was able to utilize a special pass that I had to reserve in advance, but it allowed us to go to both parks for free and get the front of the line express for nearly all rides that have it, for a one-time use that day only. Thanks to these perks, we’ve been able to take her family out for some fun, while saving money along the way.

Christmas day was a nice and low-key day at our house. We did not travel anywhere that day, stayed in our pajamas for most of the day and just relaxed. We made some video calls to our parents back in California. We originally thought about having a large breakfast, but since not everyone was awake, and those that were awake were not that hungry, we opted for a small pastry breakfast instead. We opened our gifts in the morning and then just hung out, watching Christmas movies, and resting. As I mentioned before, Christmas was also Miracle’s birthday, so we celebrated him that day and tried to spend extra time with him as well. We had a large dinner that included a whole turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and bread. The turkey was free thanks to my work gifting it to me for Thanksgiving. We kept it frozen of course, but I thought it was a great gift, an 11-pound turkey! All in all, we had a great Christmas day.

The following day we slept in, which is an unusual occurrence in our house. It was a nice reward for a long week. Now normally we keep our Christmas decorations up for at least another week, usually that first weekend of the new year, sometimes the second weekend, is when we take everything down.

For whatever reason this year, I decided to start taking things down the very next day. Now I purposely skipped the two Christmas trees, but everything else came down. All of the glassware, dishes, kitchen towels, and utensils all got packed away. All of the wall décor, my Department 56 village, and any other figures or villages got packed. It felt good and very productive. As I’m writing this, the only thing remaining up are the two trees, which those will take several hours on their own. One large figure, because I can’t find the box, and our yard decorations, which are a few inflatables and a couple plastic yard ornaments. So basically, all is packed, so I’m feeling very good about it.

Our first Christmas at our new home is in the books. I would say it was successful and I’m glad we were able to celebrate it here, but I’m also glad it’s over this year. I just want to finish moving in and settling in our new home and next year, I’m sure we can enjoy it much better and in our own way.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year and that 2023 brings you all joy and wellness. Thanks for reading everyone and look for some new videos on our YouTube channel, hopefully coming soon.