27 December 2013

Our Christmas Story

You know that feeling after Christmas? Where your heart sinks just a little bit....even if it was the most wonderful day? Well that's what Eric and I were feeling last night.  I think it's because there's such a huge build up to Christmas.  My favorite season is from Halloween through Christmas.  Three holidays packed close together, Eric's birthday and BMan's birthday are in there there, too. Even though there's a new year coming, I hate for this season to be over.  Let's be real, New Years is fun, but I'm not even sure I'll make it to midnight this year. Our Christmas was great.  We started with Christmas Eve at Eric's parents house - just hanging out, lots of snacks, Chinese food for dinner...can't argue with that!  BMan even got to open a gift early...LOL Elmo.


 I think he's still trying to figure out how to make him laugh....and for some reason, this Elmo came with a squeaky toy that has a fish in a fishbowl on it...B enjoys stuffing that in Elmo's mouth instead of making Elmo laugh.

B got changed into his Christmas jammies, had a bottle and ended up drifting off...but not for long.  There was too much going on and he ended up hanging out for another hour or so.  We took off for the night and when we got about 15 minutes away, Eric's parents called to let us know we had left a card, Eric's wallet and our camera there.  Woops...we turned right back around to grab it all.  Once we left their house for the second time, we took a little detour to a house that was right off the main road on our way back home.  This house was awesome...we didn't stay long because B was sleeping, but there were tons of cars on the road, the owner (presumably) was dressed up as Santa in the driveway wishing the little kids a Merry Christmas...this is just someone's house!



What a neat thing to see on Christmas Eve....hopefully they'll keep doing this and we can take B to walk around next year!  We finally made it home, got B in his crib and waited for Santa to come finished wrapping gifts and getting name tags on everything :) BMan woke up a few times but luckily he has no concept of who Santa actually is...nor can he get out of his crib...or over the gates to get upstairs.  I guess we had it easy this year!

Even though B doesn't have any concept of Santa, this year was the first time he could had some fun on Christmas (he wasn't even a month old last year) and Eric and I had a great time watching him. Now I know I'm going to be judged for what I'm about to tell you, and I'm actually totally okay with that.  Brady got a total of three presents from us this year.  Four if you count the PJs that we gave him on Christmas Eve, but those weren't even wrapped.  He got a Charlie Brown Christmas DVD, a Christmas outfit and a new car seat. I know you're probably saying, no toys? No toys for a one year old?!  Yes, it's true.  Allow me to explain.  BMan just had a birthday, and we were sure that our families were going to get him toys and books and maybe even some clothes.  So you're saying that's not enough for him?  Check out what makes B's day:
Yes, the picture is blurry...but that's B, running around like a little maniac with two empty rolls of wrapping paper. The cardboard that helps the wrapping paper stay in rolls.  YES. That's what BMan loved.  His room and our upstairs look like Toys 'R Us threw up all over them. Did I almost have a meltdown get really snappy with Eric when we were doing Christmas shopping and we had nothing for B? YES. Something about spending a lot of money on yourselves and not on the little guy just didn't feel right.  But you know, on Christmas, B proved exactly why we did what we did. These wrapping paper rolls and a set of 10 white sports socks that I got for Eric kept him mesmerized pretty much the entire time we were opening gifts.  And watching B open his car seat was super cute, but neared painful after the first 15 minutes. :) All I can say is that if we had gotten him more, gift opening probably would have taken 5 hours. It took about 10 minutes to get him over to the presents to even start opening. Why you ask? Because of the best gifts ever (wrapping paper rolls!)...


 When we finally got him over to his big gift (which, in his defense, he did walk over to first thing in the morning, he just got distracted pretty quickly...) Eric showed him how to start tearing the wrapping paper and he did get going....I'll give you the abridged version here (because I have about 50 pictures of him opening his first gift!!)





I told Eric that I can't wait for him to be old enough where he has some concept of the fact that 1 - there's a gift that's in the box (not all about getting the wrapping paper off, my bug) and 2 - I can't wait for B to be at the age where he starts to open a gift that he has wanted, and once he sees what's inside gets super excited.  Opening his car seat was super cute (don't get me wrong) but when he started out, he would tear off a tiny piece, bring it over to Eric and be so proud of himself...he had to be tricked back in to opening the rest of his present! The good news is that once we took the car seat out, he seemed to like it!



Once BMan figured out how to unwrap gifts, he helped us with the rest of ours






 But I would say he got a little tired after a while...so tired, that he needed to take a break:
In case you can't tell, BMan was lying down, but those tootsies were still moving around and kicking wrapping paper. Eric and I had a year of great gifts.  Not many surprises (ok, Eric had 0 surprises other than his stocking and I had one).  We actually went shopping together - we both needed clothes and we got a lot of them (and some bags, but mostly clothes)...
 I realized just now that we don't have a pile of all of our gifts...just the aftermath...
 Now don't get me wrong, next year B will definitely get lots more gifts and Santa will definitely be stopping by.  But this year, I think our little Christmas was just perfect - everyone was a happy camper.  After we had our Christmas morning, we (sort of) cleaned up, had some breakfast, took a shower and got ready for Eric's family to head over.  Eric's parents and one of his brothers came over and let's just say that the little BMan definitely got some gifts. He got a little "Cars" chair, a helicopter, some legos and mini John Deer tractors...


 We had lots of great snacks, most of which I consumed so there was barely room for dinner...
 Good food, good company...makes for a great Christmas! And don't worry, stay tuned for more Christmas adventures to come!

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