Tis the Christmas holiday season. Football, football and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I had forgotten how excited Lucas and Eli are to watch every holiday program on the air.
The first year they were home Rudolph made absolutely no sense and the Abominable Snow Monster was the scariest thing imaginable.
Last year we spent the entire hour explaining e v e r y t h i n g throughout the entire hour.
This year apparently we turned a corner with the Rudolph experience. They were both still just as excited, they made us promise that they'd be home from basketball practice in time to watch it. But this year there were no explanations needed, no hiding behind the pillows. They sat quietly, absorbed 150% in a holiday tradition that both Mike and I and the girls all have in our memories. It would be one of those links that are established within an adoptive family that a person doesn't necessarily read in the billion adoption books or enters an adoptive parents' mind when you are looking for ways to involve and introduce family traditions. That is until you are like us, perhaps two years down the road of adoption, with a few holidays under your belt and instead of watching the holiday classics, you are watching your sons enjoy a tradition that they can fully understand and absorb into themselves.
To watch them enjoy and not stress over a holiday happening is a reminder on how stressful this time of year can be for them. Chaos is not our friend on a good day, throw in larger crowds, rich and sugary foods and over stimulation is a small description of the havoc holidays can create for them. It was really nice to witness even this small piece of the holidays being enjoyed by the boys.
Rudolph is the first of what will hopefully be more enjoyable, less stressful holiday happenings. Although getting them to bed after they gave the play by play of what Rudolph said and what the snow monster did was another post entirely.
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