Seriously is anyone else out there totally and utterly exhausted from the holidays? If Christmas was a drug, this would for sure be the comedown period. When I was single I don’t recall ever feeling this exhausted at Christmas. For those of you wondering what does this brown chick know about Christmas. Well I have every major religion covered in my family. When I was young we celebrated this joyful holiday with my Grandpa and his Filipino wife and son who are Catholic and it was wonderful! Some of the best memories of my life were spent with them, makes me tear up a bit thinking about it. Then after he passed we spent the holiday with our second family my Mom’s Italian best friend and her family, and it has been just as wonderful. so suffice it to say I’ve got some experience when it comes to Christmas! Yes we also went to Midnight Mass which was beautiful, but I have a hard time staying awake in any church, no disrespect, I happen to find the environment very soothing.

This year I hosted Christmas at my new home, and I think this is what has caused me to become a Scrooge. I woke up Christmas Eve morning with a migraine and used every trick in my book to subdued the monster pounding on my brain, only long enough to clean my entire house at lighten speed. Anyway we stayed up with the kids eating popcorn after dinner watching Frozen. It was great fun, but I don’t understand why in so tired and grumpy.

Then began the outings of seeing family and giving and receiving gifts. I feel like my kids are spoiled rotten with gifts. To the point where my older son, said he was tired of unwrapping and left the adults to go to his room alone. What kids does that? No matter how hard I tried to reign in the amount gifts that they received, still my home looks like it was a Charity drop off centre for toys.

I know this is a first world problem, we are so lucky, but I very much want my kids to give some of the toys away to charity, to see how it feels to give to those less fortunate. At the same time I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings especially if I give away their gift. What would you do?