Christmas Chaos and Everything Perfect

Two years. It’s been two years since we’ve had everyone together for Christmas, and I’m not ashamed to say I cried into my coffee at 6 AM this morning just thinking about it.

Christmas Chaos and Everything Perfect

The kitchen was pure beautiful chaos - Marcus telling Dad the same story about Theo’s dinosaur phase for the third time, Sophie rolling her eyes but secretly loving every second, and Mom getting teary every time she looked around at all of us crammed into our little kitchen.

Of course, the real star of the show was Biscuit, who waited exactly long enough for us to let our guard down before making his move on the Christmas ham.

The exact moment Biscuit made his move on the Christmas ham

The look of pure determination on his face as he stretched those front paws up onto the counter - I’ve never seen Marcus move so fast in his life. We saved most of the ham, don’t worry.

Theo appointed himself my official sous chef for the gravy, which meant I had a very serious six-year-old explaining the proper stirring technique while standing on his tiptoes to supervise.

My sous chef insisting he needs to ‘help’ with the gravy

His dinosaur socks were the perfect touch to his Christmas morning ensemble, obviously.

Abuela Rosa said the most beautiful grace, thanking God for bringing us all back together safely. Mom cried again (happy tears, always happy tears with her). Dad managed to work in three different stories about ‘the old days’ before we even sat down to eat. Sophie took approximately 400 photos of everything because she’s definitely my daughter. And somewhere in all of it, watching my family fill up our kitchen with noise and laughter and too much food and Biscuit’s tail wagging at maximum speed, I realized this is exactly what I’ve been missing. We’re all together. That’s the only present that matters.