As of yesterday, I was officially back in the office. It was wonderful to take a little over a week off to spend time with my family and recharge my batteries. The rush between September through December for photography can be a little intense so taking a little time off can be hugely beneficial for me to get back into the swing of things for the new year. But it was also the time for a ton of family gatherings for the Christmas holidays.

We love our families a lot so getting to spend time with them is real joy. Since we’ve started updating our adoption page more with little sneak peeks into our life, we’ve been trying to be better at recording videos and taking pictures to share. So this year, we made sure to get some video clips of our families at Christmas. You can take a peek at that below. (We’ve created a Youtube channel for those too.)

Every year it seems like we have a minimum of 5 Christmases to go to – 2 or 3 for Ryan’s family and 2 or 3 for mine. This year we actually only had 4 plus we invited Ryan’s mom to our house on Christmas day since we got to stay home. It was kind of nice having a little more laid back holiday. We got to do all our traditions of visiting Ryan’s grandma and the big get together for his dad’s side with food and Bingo. My family’s wasn’t until New Year’s Eve and New Year’s day. We celebrated with my immediate family on the eve and my extended on January 1st.

While it was wonderful seeing everyone and getting to see our nephews, this year still fell flat for me. Christmas, in general, can be hard for the childless. It’s a season that’s all about family and you hear people talking about how much better Christmas is for them because they have children. But those of us without often remain silent about the pain that lingers there. Last year was really difficult and I didn’t have any Christmas spirit… I didn’t decorate at all. And Christmas is my favorite holiday so that’s saying something. This year was better, but still hard. It’s been a year since we became a waiting adoptive couple, and we’re still waiting for the baby we’ve been praying for to find his or her way to us. (And it’s been almost 7 years total since we started trying to grow our family.) If I’m honest – I’m beginning to hit the point of hopelessness about it. So while this year was better, it was still a hard season for me.

But I’m grateful for family and friends and I’m grateful for nephews and my niece. I’m grateful for my health and for my relationship with my husband and God. Life may not be perfect. But there’s a lot to be thankful for!