Sending Holiday Cheer

This year the holidays will be different without Josh.  I was going to be a "Negative Nancy" and not put up decorations in an attempt to boycott the holiday, but I can't deny the Christmas spirit: it's infectious.  I not only put up or Christmas tree and the decorations but I even went out to buy more festive decorations to add to our collection.

Every year the holidays come around I feel like its an opportunity for me to practice putting on the holidays for when Josh and I someday have kids.  I remember my parents (Mom especially) were always so good about making the holidays special for us.  The house was decorated, we did our holiday traditions, fresh Cranberry Orange bread (a staple in the Sullivan household) was always baking and the air was filled with Christmas cheer (Christmas tunes and the aroma of fresh cookies).  I want the same for my kids so with each holiday I'll get a little better at "putting on Christmas" till someday it'll be Christmas just like my parents had for us.

So being filled with holiday cheer I headed to the store and bought 2 boxes worth of Christmas delights to send to Josh.  I can't imagine how hard it must be for him to be away from family for the holidays, so I wanted to send him a little piece of home to have with him.

Beans wanted to play with everything in this box so bad!

 Contents of the above & below box included:

• Mini Christmas tree & mini ornaments
• Mini Christmas wreath
• Christmas lights
• Santa Yoda Bobblehead (I couldn't resist, he was too darn cute!)
• Stocking filled with LOTS of Christmas candy & the Sullivan traditional milk chocolate orange in the toe
• Homemade Christmas cookies (wrapped tightly and frozen beforehand)
• Josh's Christmas present: a calendar made on Shutterfly with pics of us and important dates, especially his countdown till Homecoming
• Toothpaste (Josh's request)
• Christmas card & New Years card
• Candy canes
• Christmas CDs
• Probably some more random Christmas themed items that I can't remember

 Luckily Josh got the packages a few days before Christmas.  He told me the tree and lights were up in their room making things festive.  He also got to open his present and enjoy some treats on Christmas morning.  I'm not sure how the cookies tasted, but I told him to be careful because they may not have been too good even though they were frozen before I sent them.

The holidays were tough without Josh as I'm sure they are for the thousands of other loved ones who have family members deployed during the holidays.  But we made it and now we are almost halfway done with this deployment!!