On this third day of Christmas...

I don't know why, but I always get sad when Christmas Day is over. Yes, yes, I know that it is technically still Christmas until the Epiphany, but I just feel like all the magic and splendor of the Christmas season is gone. Christmas morning comes, the presents are opened, and just like that- poof- it's gone. People take down their Christmas trees that day. The neighborhoods are cold and dark with no twinkling lights to shine in the night.

I always get so emotional on Christmas Day, probably due to lack of sleep. However, the days following it I am still morose. For some reason I hate New Year's Eve. I hate all the specials on TV about the year in review. I hate when things come to an end, even something as inevitable as the year. I've always had this melancholy depressed feeling watching the Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with all the peppy pop culture hoopla and excited people lining the streets of Times Square. Maybe it stems back from when I was in elementary and high school. I knew that once New Years Day came then that meant back to school in two or three days, and that was no fun. Maybe it is because I know there is about three months of crappy, cold and snowy weather. Yes, the first few snows of winter, especially around Christmas are pure magic, but after that I'm sick of it and ready for spring.

I wish the joy of celebrating Christ's birth would storm into my heart. I wish I could be like this:



End of the year blah's. Yay. It doesn't help that I feel like the last 15 months of lack of sleep is catching up with me.

Hopefully this Mrs. Poopy-Pants attitude with go away soon.

Toddlers and Midnight Mass?

I really thought I'd get some great blog posts out during this Advent season. I have oodles of ideas in my head. One of them is how I don't feel close to our Blessed Mother Mary. At all. Another is how my idea of babies, pregnancies and infertility has changed since I was a teenager.

But I've been sooooooo veeeeeeeery tiiiiiiiiiired. My brain feels like a gobbily gook of mush and I fear I cannot get any intelligent words out. So I suppose these posts will have to wait until my brain solidifies.

However, there is one topic I want to address. I need opinions and experiences.

Should my husband and I take our nearly 16 month old toddler to Midnight Mass this year?

We took him last year, but he was only about 3 months old and slept through almost the whole Mass. I think there was one time Ryan had to take him downstairs because he was fussing. But I nursed him and he was back to sleep. No problems.


This year is a different story. We have a very loud, active and mobile little person on our hands. This is a little church so people will notice a screaming child. My hometown parish is very small so I doubt there will be many other little kids there adding to the chorus of jibber jabber. I also have to sing in the choir, so it will be up to my mom and Ryan (and my brother perhaps) to wrangle Joe.

It seems like it would be too much of a hassle to wake him up and bring him to Mass (which is actually at 11:00 p.m.) I have no idea how Joe would react to being woken up, even though he still wakes up frequently throughout the night. It just seems a little too tricky to me.

But I so want him to go! I know he's too young to really know what is going on, but I just want our whole family there. If Joe doesn't go, Ryan would stay home with him and it just wouldn't be the same. Then I keep thinking to the future, if God blesses us with more children, will it always be this way? I go to Midnight Mass with the older kids while Ryan stays home with the baby? Will I have to wait until all our kids are quite a bit older for us all to go as a family? That just bums me out.

I am a strong believer in bringing babies/toddlers/children to Mass. (You should read this amazing post by Kate Wicker!) I also believe that if they are being too loud and disruptive then it is appropriate to remove them from the situation until they can behave themselves.

I suppose we can just play it by ear. If Joe throws a holy fit when we wake him up then perhaps Ryan will stay with him. We will just wait and see!

So what does your family do? What experiences good and bad have you had when bringing your toddler to Midnight Mass? Thanks for any help you can give me!!!