A meltdown and an almost meltdown

I realized on December 23 that I hadn't made the outdoor ice candle holders I usually make. Maybe not a big deal, but the very first year we had Christmas without Tripp, I made some for our front step and for beside Tripp's tree in his memory. You might also remember that many of my neighbors put them outside of their houses to show me their love for our boy. Once I realized my blunder, I instantly started sobbing. There are so many things to think about and until I started thinking about visiting Tripp's tree on Christmas morning, I had forgotten about the ice candle holders. After a brief meltdown, I gathered my strength and reminded myself there was likely still time to get a couple of candle holders made. . . And then I couldn't find the mold.

That evening we went into the city to see Santa. We got to the mall and headed to Santa's chair. We were the first ones in line. I took a quick glance at the Santa hours and my heart dropped. The hours on the 23rd were only in the afternoon. I could have sworn they said online that they were in the evening as well. I felt sick. I felt tears welling up in my eyes. How could we have a year without a picture of the boys with Santa? Pictures are very important to me and I felt devastation setting it. I proclaimed to Hugh that between the candle holders and the Santa pictures I basically ruined Christmas (yes a bit dramatic, but remember I was on the brink of a meltdown). Hugh immediately went into problem solving mode. He looked up the hours to Santa at a different mall and even called the mall to check on the hours. In the meantime I couldn't believe I had done such a lousy job of reading the hours online, so I grabbed my phone and double checked. Upon further review I realized I wasn't wrong. They had the hours online wrong. I was seeing red. Someone was going to pay for this and I began scouring the mall for some sort of customer service desk. Lucky for the person working the customer service desk, a man came up at that moment and said his daughter had been just as rattled as me and already went to the customer service desk. Turns out the sign was wrong. Meltdown averted. Santa pictures full speed ahead.

Boone was pumped for Santa all day. We were asking him who he was going to see after supper and he would shout, "SANTA"! When we got to the mall he was running around chanting Santa's name. Unfortunately this enthusiasm didn't extend to the photograph. The moment Boone saw Santa he was having none of him, so Hugh had to hop in the photo! I also love Boone's hair in this pic. I actually gave it a bit of a spit down before Santa arrived, but it clearly didn't cooperate. I am annoyed at the terrible photo I took. Love how I got the space between Hugh and Santa's head in focus. I guess I can't win them all.

After what I thought was a successful picture session, I realized that I could also save the candle crisis. It may not be the same as the last few years but I could fix it. I headed to London Drugs and when they didn't have what I wanted, I walked to Target. Nine dollars and ninety-nine cents later, I had 2 LED pillar candles. There would work perfectly at Tripp's tree. I decided I would put some mason jars with LED candles at our front door, but didn't want to leave glass at the park, so the pillar candles were the perfect fix. I set them on the bench instead of by his tree, because I was worried the batteries would get wet.

Merry Christmas Eve!