Boxing Day

As I sit with baby in my lap enjoying the first quiet moment I've had in a holiday season, I'm thinking about all of the things that make Christmas memorable. Things change so much from year to year now, as they never did before. As we look back at the photos from holidays past, we can see time pass before our eyes. As a relative said last night, my husband and I could go up to the snow on Christmas Day, take a great photo, and use it for next year's card. But the kids would change so much, the photo would be outdated. It seems we do not change much from year to year -- a dozen more gray hairs or a few more crow's feet -- but our kids change drastically. They get hair where before they had peach fuzz. They grow taller, leaner, more steady. They get teeth. They get dimples. They get little snotty attitudes that weren't there the year before.

It is so important to cherish each day in their little lives. To savor the small moments as well as the big. The first handmade ornament. The first cookies and milk for Santa. The first Christmas as a family. Because next year, the little boy in my arms won't be a baby anymore. Next year there will be no more gummy smiles. Next year the big boy will teach us about Santa. Next year will be nothing like this one. They don't seem to change too much from one year to the next, but when we look back at this year, whether it be next Christmas or ten Christmas' from now, they will seem so small and young and little, and so very far away from who they are now.