CommonKind: Christmas: A Sweet and Simple Kind

Heating milk and boiling water for Christmas morning cappuccino. "Merry Christmas Y'all" towel is from the Village Firefly, one of my favorite shops for made in USA arts and crafts in Rice Village.

We moved in to a new house in the Rice Village neighborhood of Houston in October. Our little house is a 1940s cottage, much smaller than where we lived before, but we love it. It's kind of like living in our Airstream trailer; although it's bigger than that, thankfully, it's similar in it's efficient use of space. And the neighborhood is incredible–super family-friendly, great schools, one of the only walkable neighborhoods in Houston, close to cafes, shops, Hermann Park, museums, and Rice University. We also love that the house has good bones and promise for future projects and a growing family. We wouldn't want to turn rip it down and build a enormous house if we decided this was the place to stay long-term to raise our family, but we would have to add on at least a little bit.

A simple touch of Christmas tradition–wreath with a hanger with our name on it. This wreath reminds me of a vintage tree, perfect for our vintage house.

Even though the house is small, I had big ideas for Christmas decorating. A tree in the living room, maybe one in the sunroom, and one on the front porch. You can do that in Houston, with our mild weather, and it looks beautiful next to rockers on porches of Southern-styled homes in the historic neighborhoods. But as December flew by, and I realized three trees was a little over the top. In fact, when we were looking at the calendar wondering when we could squeeze in a trip to Whole Foods together to pick out even one tree, I realized that even a tree was probably just adding too much to the list this year.

I opted for some Christmas-colored pillows outside instead. Simpler than a tree, and I already had them. Wrigley, one of our Goldendoodles, approved.

Burly, our other Goldendoodle.

Our list happens to be even longer than normal this year because we're expecting our first baby sometime around the 22nd of January. Though we really have focused on getting only what we need and not what every baby and toy company is willing to sell us, and we've been relatively successful with that, there is still a lot to do.

Not putting up a tree was sort of a painful decision (albeit short-lived pain) because I initially felt like I was failing at establishing tradition for our growing family already this year. I love digging into our boxes of ornaments each year and pulling out memories. I always loved doing that with my mom, and I want to create that tradition for our children, too.

An ornament from my mom.

An Airstream ornament–had to have a few ornaments out–especially this one!

Pregnancy has been a process of considering what it is I want to give this baby growing inside me and figuring out how many of those habits and behaviors really start during pregnancy. For instance, I want my child to know what is important. It's a sweeping statement, I know. Right now, what is important is taking care of my health to take care of his health. That means not overdoing it, something at which I am not always so good. And if I don't do it now, what makes me think I am going to do it later. I think pregnancy is a time to really establish good habits for your family's future.

Although we didn't go through the ornament boxes and decorate a tree this year, and we kept in simple in other ways–with gifts, meals, and other holiday decor–this Christmas has already become it's own special memory: the one where we kept it pretty simple because getting ready for the birth of our first child was most important. As my mother-in-law says, there are different times for everything, and this year it was about preparing for baby. There are a lot of things about that story that seem pretty consistent with the story of the first Christmas, and make this one seem like our most authentic Christmas ever.

Simple Christmas breakfast–Texas Rio Star grapefruit with panettone and cappuccino. Perfect.

Something we hardly ever do–breakfast on the couch (or a nap)

And the house ended up looking pretty lovely in it's simplicity, too, which was a bonus. I hope your Christmas was beautiful, too. Here are some pictures of ours.