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Being pregnant often comes with a lot of aches and pains, weird cravings and food aversions and exhaustion. When you add in all the stress and chaos of the last several weeks of the holiday season you may be feeling a little overwhelmed, a lot tired and uncomfortable. The holidays can be stressful and exhausting for anyone. The best thing you can do for yourself and your baby is to take care of yourself, relax and focus on you and that baby growing inside of you.
Here are a few things you can do to help relieve some of the aches, pains and exhaustion brought on by the holidays:
- Drink plenty of water to help keep yourself hydrated.
- Rest. Take a nap if you need one, don’t worry about what anyone else thinks or what you “should” be doing, just focus on you and rest when you need it.
- Get some exercise (if ok by your doctor), even if it is just walking around the block. Exercise helps relieve many of the aches and pains of pregnancy and also helps alleviate exhaustion.
- Eat plenty of healthy fruits and veggies and healthy whole grains to keep you body in good health and operating properly.
- Ask your partner for a foot and back massage to help alleviate some of the back pain and leg pain you are no doubt feeling.
- Skip parties and family functions if you aren’t feeling up to it, people will understand.
- Take a warm bath at the end of the day to help you relax and be restful so you can sleep well at night.
- Wear loose-fitting comfortable clothing and shoes to help prevent back and leg pain and unnecessary discomfort.
- Avoid foods that you know bring on uncomfortable symptoms such as nausea, heartburn, indigestion, etc.
- Rest, rest, rest.
The most important thing you can do is pay attention to your body and recognize when you have had enough and need to rest. Be sure to call your doctor if you have any unusual symptoms or feel anything isn’t right.
Enjoy this time with your partner and your family. This time next year there will be a new addition to your holiday celebrations.
I hope everyone is having a fabulous Christmas with their families. We are busy spending time with both my family and Lorne’s family. We’ll wake up this morning and open gifts with my Mum and brothers then head up to Lorne’s parent’s place around lunchtime. Although it is always a crazy busy trip we are glad to be able to spend the holidays with our families.
May your heart be light this morning as you open gifts, may your thoughts be filled with joy as you think of your loved ones and may this next year bring you many wonderful things.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Christmas was always a big deal around my house when I was growing up. My Mum loves (and I mean LOVES) Christmas. She goes all out with her decorating. Our house inside and out always looked very festive it was impossible not to get into the Christmas spirit. There were several things we did every year, traditions that made the season familiar and wonderful. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without these traditions and I want to pass them on to Maya so that when she grows up and moves into her own home and has her own family she’ll think back on Christmases when she was growing up with the same fondness that I look back on my childhood Christmases.
One of my favorite Christmas traditions was getting a new Christmas ornament every year. The ornament was always fondly picked out my my Mum and always captured each of us perfectly. The ornament when we were really young was tapped to our big gift from Santa with the gift tag. Later is was usually in our stocking. I still use these ornaments every year to decorate my Christmas tree and have so much fun reminiscing as I put each ornament on the tree. I’ve already started passing this tradition on to Maya, she has two ornaments that were very fondly picked out just for her. I hope she loves this tradition as much as I do.
Another tradition that I loved and have already started passing on to Maya is the Christmas jammies and “the holding empty stocking” picture in said jammies. Every year my Mum would buy us each a new pair of Christmas pajammas. She would give us the new jammies on Christmas Eve when we got home from the Christmas Eve service at our church. We would all don our new jammies and my Mum would get ready to take our yearly “hold our empty stocking” picture. We would all grab our stockings and sit down in front of the Christmas tree and my Mum would take a picture. The pictures always turned out so well, I think because we were all so happy and excited about what the next day would bring. Maya’s Christmas jammies are sitting in my closet waiting for Christmas Eve when she will proudly wear them and get her picture taken. Who doesn’t love a new pair of warm Christmas jammies.
The next Christmas tradition that I hope to pass on once we start having Christmases at home instead of traveling, is my Mum’s Christmas morning ritual tradition. As a child this next tradition used drive us all crazy, but looking back on it I realize how awesome it was. Every Christmas morning we would all get up and rush to the tree. We would open the gifts in our stockings and our big Santa gift. Once we were done my Mum would put a halt to the gift opening so that we could all head to the kitchen for a yummy pancake breakfast. Although it was tough to leave our presents behind and sit through a whole breakfast, but I loved those breakfasts. We were all so happy and had such fun talking about the gifts we had received from Santa. I can’t wait to be at home for a Christmas so I can introduce her to this favorite of Christmas traditions.
There are so many Christmas traditions I want to share with Maya, but those are a few of my very favorites. I hope she loves them as much as I do and I look forward to developing our own traditions, like making a gingerbread house every year 
For as long as I can remember these shortbread cookies have been a staple at Christmas. Every year my Mum would bake at least 2 batches (usually more). We’d always eat them as fast as she could make them. They were always the cookie of choice to bring along to Christmas functions such as the church potluck luncheon or our school Christmas parties.
Maya and I made a batch yesterday (pictured above). Maya’s favorite part was adding the sprinkles 
Here is the recipe for my Mum’s world famous Shortbread Cookies.
1/2 cup Corn Starch
1/2 cup Icing Sugar
1 cup Flour
3/4 cup Butter
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Sift together the corn starch, icing sugar and floor.
3. Add the butter and mix well until a smooth, soft dough forms (my mum uses a spoon but I often use my hands because I find it goes faster).
4. Shape the dough into small balls and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet.
5. Flatten each ball with a fork and put on the sprinkles (sprinkles optional).
6. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 to 25 mins or until edges are lightly browned.
Recipes about 3 dozen cookies.
This is a great recipe to make with kids because it is so easy and there aren’t a ton of ingredients or steps.
If you decide make a batch for your family let me know what you think. I can tell you I have yet to find a person who doesn’t like these cookies
One of Maya‘s favorite games is the ” What Does A ______ Say?” game, it’s her chance to show off all the animal sounds she knows. We’ve added a new person to the game…Santa. What does Santa say?
She’s really into the whole Christmas thing this year, as you can tell by her lovely Santa hat