No. 120: The First Christmas in Our New Home
A video to remember the sweetest day.
I made the video at the bottom of this post for both of us. Nearly four years ago, we bought an almost fully gutted home with the intention of doing a “quick renovation to make it livable” with a projected move-in day of Christmas 2021. We didn’t even complete demolition until July of that year and we didn’t move in until June of this year which means Christmas has been marked by a longing and disappointment I tried my best to suppress for years.
We bought our first home together in Virginia a couple months after our wedding because O had signed with the then Washington Redskins. I loved that home, but I knew the NFL wouldn’t last forever so I while I decorated it and made upgrades with future buyers in mind, the temporary nature means it never felt like ours.
We moved to Texas in 2018 with the goal of selling our home in Virginia, finishing up a couple renovation projects in Maryland and buying a home here. That’s not what life had in store. I remember being nervous to sign a one year lease because I was sure we’d be moved into our “forever home” by then. I was pregnant with our third baby, we had strong investments and life was good.
I lost the baby within a week of living in Texas, the properties we owned went differently than planned and we just surrendered the entire timeline to the Lord. In total, we rented for seven years—the one year lease was definitely safe.
I say all of this to say our home build process brought us to the absolute end of ourselves time and time again, and not just in the “this is so hard and delayed and frustrating and isolating” kind of way. I’m not tone-deaf enough to miss realizing it’s an incredible blessing to renovate a home. This process humbled us, though, stretching us emotionally nearly as much as it did financially and left us in a place of complete surrender. I’m so incredibly grateful we are finally living in the home we dreamed up and the spaces I’ve been sketching on napkins, journal scraps, and tracing paper for decades. But I’ve grown to understand that we live this life with open hands.
All throughout Christmas Eve, I felt it. I felt it as we tucked the kids into their beds in the bunk room and read Advent nuzzled together, I felt it as I looked at the tree reflected in the sunroom windows with all the presents beneath, I felt it as I heard their feet pitter-pattering down the staircase at dawn, I felt it as we sat around the special table next to the fire in the dining room. “Even if this is the only Christmas we get to spend in this home, I’m grateful".” And I mean it with every bit of me.
This Christmas was special for so many reasons. The last Christmas (the last month) before my oldest is in double digits, the last Christmas where the baby is still a baby but aware and excited, the last Christmas with two girls who are still both little girls. I’m grateful I anticipated enough to know just how badly I’ll want to look back on this and but was present enough that even if I didn’t have any footage, I’d never forget the way I felt this day.
I hope you enjoy this little peek into a magical day for our family and I pray you’re in the thick of a beautiful, restorative weekend in this sacred in-between endings and beginnings.
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