The Night Before Christmas

Last updated on September 24th, 2020 at 01:28 pm

The Night Before Christmas

T’was the night before Christmas…yes, that famous line that is familiar to almost everyone around the world. It’s part of so many families’ traditions during the festive season to read this story to their children. I get a little emotional and reflective this time of year as Christmas draws near. It’s one more year with my beautiful family, gone. It’s one more holiday marked off the list. They are only little for so long and soon (yes, it does go that fast) they will have their own families to celebrate with. Not saying I won’t ever spend the holidays with them again after they move out but knowing how easy a child moves across the world (Me!) I know they might be limited too in the future. So each year, I really embrace the time off from the busy routines, school runs, and work and I soak it up as much as I can. I also try to join in as many traditions I can with them from pantos, Santa grotto days out, feeding reindeer, baking Christmas cookies, matching Christmas pjs and Christmas movies and stories as much as possibly leading up to the big day.

Our Christmas Eve is as special in my heart as actual Christmas Day is with my children. We keep our matching Christmas pjs on all day, we bake in the morning, we watch a Christmas movie in the afternoon with Christmas hot chocolate and red and green popcorn, and we read The Night Before Christmas story all snuggled up in my bed. This year, we wanted to make it extra special and festive for baby boy’s very first Christmas holiday with our Philip Hue lights. We turned our normal reading bedside lamps into red and green using Philip Hue wifi light bulbs. You can control them with the Hue App and with a push of a button, have a choice of 16 million different colors. It really did put such a fun, Christmas vibe to our story telling. Daddy and I take turns reading different parts of the story to the kids. You can see how excited baby boy was about it too!

The Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas

It’s no secret we like to go all out each holiday. You can even see what we did for Halloween with our lighting, it took SPOOKY to a whole new level. After working this past year with Philips testing their lighting system out, we couldn’t be without it now. It not only is great for making special occasions and holidays more magical and fun but we find they help us in so many other ways.

For example, winter and dark evenings really are a killer for my husband and I. That seasonal blahs set in quickly when it’s always dark waking up and dark early afternoons. Our Philips Hue lights have been a life savor this winter adding a variety of warm and bright, almost natural light colors into our home so we haven’t even noticed the darker evenings at all this year. I was so surprised what a difference they make. We have them in most of the lamps in our house from our living room to playroom to our bedroom.

Another added bonus is being able to turn them off and on for the kids. Our kids are scared of the dark and in the mornings when I am still feeding their baby brother they don’t like to go downstairs now that the mornings are dark. I can click in the Hue App which lights I want on to light their way to eating breakfast without even getting up. This has been a game changer for saving time in the morning as before they would sit and wait until I finished feeding the baby to go downstairs with me to eat breakfast.

With schedules and routine features on the app, you can even set times for lights to go off and on at bedtimes, morning times, and in between so you don’t have to do it manually. Think about holidays away having your lights come on and off is a great way for people to think you are still home during holiday season. We use this feature a lot when B wants to read before bed. We set a 30 minute timer and it goes off, he then knows it’s bedtime. In the past, we have been guilty of forgetting he is reading and it’s gone passed his bedtime. Ooops. Hue App to the rescue. Cheesy but true!!

The Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas

I have watched the magic glowing from these two as Christmas gets closer. From counting down the days, to eating their advent calendars each day, marking another day closer to Santa. I sometimes wish we could start celebrating it a bit earlier than we do with Thanksgiving the end of November it’s hard to start it before then. But I just love watching them believe something so magical and their faces light up at the small things like what our Elf on the Shelf has been up to at night. It really is the simple things in life that make it so very special. Watching my kids celebrate Christmas is pure gold.

I love how festive the house has felt this year more than other years in the past. I think having a new baby and focusing on everything being his first experience has really made it extra special. I go all out on the Christmas decorations too. I foresee next year having to put a gate around all my Christmas trees as we have three 6 foot trees in our house and garland on every shelf, fireplace and stairs. With a toddler running around I am sure me decorating the house in every corner might not be the easiest task next year so I will soak it up at the moment.

Adding in our festive red and green lights all over the house, you couldn’t get more Christmas-y, if you tried. That’s a word right? Well, it should be!
The Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas

So with it being Christmas time…. I  wish everyone a happy, merry, memorable Christmas and New Year!!! Thanks for reading, watching, commenting, liking, sharing and overall supportive me and my family here on Let’s Talk Mommy. I hope to continue to entertain you, bring you useful parenting and travel tips, fun, fashion for adults and children and those tasty, delicious recipes for years to come. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

*In Collaboration with Philips Hue

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.