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Children's joy and anticipation of Christmas is absolutely wonderful to experience. BUT how do you get through Christmas without everyone's forehead lobes being melted by the time we get to 3pm on Christmas Eve? It is a question I have asked myself and two wonderful women and mothers. This morning I was woken up at 04.55 by my husband: " Would you mind getting up with him today, have been sitting in his room since 04.00." That DAMN Christmas stocking !” Our son has been given a Christmas stocking by my sweet parents, so Santa can put a present in EVERY day. (It's only December 12th and I've been looking like this for the past few days Want to beat my parents though. Because how lucky you are that they want to make a packing calendar for your son. They have even spent time finding good recycled toys - yes, on top of that they have become some of the most sustainable people I know. With own shopping bags, good flea finds, sorting rubbish and buying a holiday home, as the time has come to holiday in other ways than before with lots of flights - GOD I hope I get the same pensioner profit one day. Well, back to the many joys and expectations that Christmas offers. At our place, we have deliberately chosen that rice porridge is served to Santa every Sunday. Our son has two chocolate Christmas calendars that he has to open every afternoon when he comes home from kindergarten, we see Pyrus and then he has the awesome morning alarm clock - the Christmas sock 😊 There are so many nice and funny pranks the Santa can do. As much as I want to dye the milk blue, swap around our furniture, and save all of our shoes, our son's forehead lobes would be completely melted by the time we get to December 17th. Honestly, my husband's and my caffeine intake would be downright unhealthy if we also had to struggle to tuck him in at night due to excitement and nervousness about what pranks Santa might come up with. I am very much looking forward to Christmas this year. After I had a child, my Christmas joy found its way back - since my grandfather died, it has been hidden well away. It has been many years now, but he was something very special to me and the Christmas memories from Falster in his house have been magical in my head. Christmas is associated with many feelings, memories and expectations. Christmas can be a sensitive subject as, in addition to joy, it can also be filled with great sadness, frustrations and worries. I am neither qualified nor experienced to elaborate on this subject, but as I sit here writing this for the first time - probably the last time - writing a blog post on a subject that we all relate to, I hope , that you will read this post with an experience that it was written with humility. Christmas is definitely not perfect with us! But it is our Christmas with all that it entails. For the first time, we will spend Christmas with my parents in their summer house together with my sister and little nephew. During Christmas we go to my parents-in-law, who live on a farm with a big Christmas wreath on the door and Christmas lights in the trees. My brother-in-law, sister-in-law and their two children are coming home from Norway. It oozes coziness and idyll! I am absolutely sure that there will be lots of fun, but the truth is also - at least with us - that being in a small cottage with a fire in the wood-burning stove, the smell of Christmas food and sweets on the table, Christmas presents under the tree , three families gathered in a small space and the excitement about whether you are lucky to see an elf or perhaps even Santa's sleigh with reindeer can also become very intense and hectic! I'm already dreading if we can even cuddle our son, if he gets so overtired and overheated with euphoria that he becomes super annoying and it's not pleasant at all. SO, what do you do to create the best setting at Christmas, so that both children and adults can follow along? I don't have the recipe! What is important to me is that Christmas does not become a race, where all our Saturdays and Sundays in the month of December are filled with Christmas lunches and the entire Christmas holiday is already occupied with events. We must have time to hang out in nightwear and take on the flight suit in addition if we feel like fresh air in the late afternoon. We must have time to build caves and take a moment just completely to ourselves . I insist that in our family we do not have two Christmas Eves - Little Christmas Eve at my parents' and Christmas Eve at Andrea's parents' or vice versa. As we have children aged three and one respectively, we dance around the tree and open presents in the afternoon. We eat afterwards, so that the kids can release some of the tension - and who knows, maybe they won't be completely wobbly from fatigue and can get to bed at a fairly decent time. One thing my sister and I have agreed on this year is to practice just being in it. Try not to get frustrated when the kids don't want to sleep at their normal bedtime, when there is a little more speed and gunpowder in the butt - because even though it can be a certain pressure, when you have many people gathered in a small summer house, it after all, it's also wonderful to be able to be so happy about Christmas and everything it brings. I wonder if, as parents, you can accept and be relaxed that Christmas does not have to be "perfect". That you don't have to chase the children before their clothes are soaked in food and that after 30 attempts you get the "glossy picture", that you can move on after the brown potatoes for the third time didn't quite go according to plan, that everyone's forehead lobes can be a little smaller overheated… I have asked Sarah about how their December months are going. Sarah is 32 years old, lives with her husband and two children aged four and a half respectively. "This year, I think Christmas is extra cozy with us. Alma has been looking forward to December for a whole year and cried a little this summer when she missed her elf. This year we have decorated a huge Christmas tree and Alma has been out choosing Christmas baubles and it has turned out so nice. Fortunately, the elf has moved in again this year and it makes elf streaks and trouble and Alma flies out of bed every day to see what it has been up to during the night. We have Advent gifts, as I think it would be a bit too much of a hassle if you had to have gifts every day. I have delegated the task to the grandparents, who think it's really nice. On Christmas Eve, the children usually get some presents in the afternoon and then we make sure that they eat at the usual dinner time and that it is not too late before bedtime. On the 25th, we (the years we celebrate Christmas on Zealand) have dedicated relaxation, cleaning and recycling of toys that are not used, so that there is room for the new and so that we are not drowning in plastic. It's actually quite nice.” Rikke and her family have also thought about how they can be a bit ahead of the curve in order to avoid too many meltdowns. Rikke is 32 years old, lives with her husband and 4-year-old son. "Christmas is a wonderful time - ALSO when you have children. Slightly provocatively written 😊 . But I think most people with small children will catch it. They know very well that the sweet Christmas season can become quite intense if you as parents are not a little ahead of the curve. Especially because nothing is quite as usual and because it is a time full of expectations. Among other things, we have thought about limiting sugar during the month of December. So that the craving for sweets hasn't completely disappeared when we get to the Christmas events, and it might be a little more difficult to manage/set limits on intake. The greater the urge, the more intense the teasing or the reaction when the adults say stop to more sweets. To that extent, the youngest in the house has a sweet tooth and a well-developed pestering and negotiating gene, and we can quickly tell by his appearance if he has had too much sugar. We have therefore chosen a Christmas calendar with dried fruit instead of chocolate - because the latter 100% would have caused more trouble than joy 😊 ”. All that remains is from Baby Dreamer to wish you all a Merry Christmas.