Monday, January 2, 2012

Christmas!

Ah, Christmas. It feels like just yesterday we were buying the biggest, fattest tree at Home Depot and now all that's left is a a massive amount of pine needles all over my house. That and Toys R Us may or may not have vomited all over my house as well. Seriously, I should be purging the playroom instead of sitting here writing a blog post. Unfortunately I am horrible at getting rid of things.

Anyway, Christmas was magical. I thought a lot about the effort to impart the reason for the season on Lila and decided I will take this new year to sort that out. Due to a last minute trip to my uncle's for Christmas Eve, we frantically bought Oreos for Santa at CVS and called it a day.


Let's back up. Here are a few key things I want to remember about Christmas this year:

* Our tree. Best. Tree. Ever. Granted, according to Seth it had a split and watering it was useless. But water it we did in hopes of getting it to last through Christmas day at least. The sad part is, due to it's size and prickly, dried up state it became hard to walk past it and not get stabbed.



* Christmas morning. Somehow Lila slept late. Evie woke up at her usual time and she and I sat in the den amidst the glow of the big tree. I whispered to her about how someday she would care about Christmas so much she would lose sleep over it.  I told her someday she would want the gift and not feel the need to eat the wrapping paper. And someday she wouldn't wake up early just to sit and smile at me like this. So for this one hour of this one Christmas morning I got the best present of all...just her.

* Being that Lila did sleep in I took another stab at Christmas morning homemade cinnamon rolls. Last year they were awful. You can imagine that I would then be a little fearful of trying again. But, they were actually pretty good this time! Maybe I will keep the tradition going after all...

* Christmas shopping. Seth and I went on a date to go Christmas shopping. I made a few realizations on this date...my shopping trip planning skills are horrendous, Toys R Us is a hateful place, and I am so excited to Christmas shop with Seth for the rest of my life. I mean, he's easy to find in a crowd, he can rationalize any toy purchase, and he now hates Toys R Us too. We are a perfect match!

* Lila's gift choices. I took Lila to the dollar aisle at Michael's. It's not as big and overwhelming as a dollar store or even the dollar aisle at Target. But, she had things to choose from. She got a massive kick out of this. I tried not to guide her but she would get herself mixed up on who gets what and want to start over. Plus, she initially thought it was all for her. This took some discussing. But, at the end of it all she was beyond thrilled with her choices. She was so thrilled that she spoke about the buttons she got for her uncle Levi for the rest of the day. That too was my favorite purchase. I will never forget her excitement over that little container of buttons.

* The big winner gift. Santa got Lila a train table with lots of Thomas the train accessories. We thought for sure that would be the big winner. Turns out, while she loves trains she is still a girly girl at heart. Mommy and Daddy (actually just daddy) got her two sets of fairy wings that came complete with a tutu, wand, and headband. She has a recent obsession with Tinkerbell whom she has only seen on a pair of hand-me-down pajamas she wears every single day and night. You can imagine how the fairy attire went over...




And, like I said, she loved the trains as well!

* Evie and Molly. Innocent bystanders to the mayhem of Christmas. We did Christmas at Seth's mom's house the Wednesday before Christmas. Evie slept through that. Christmas morning she ate some wrapping paper, tried on her new (way too big) shoes, and then lounged while watching Lila blow through presents (some of which actually were Evie's). Christmas afternoon was more of the same with my mom and Seth's brother. And even the day after Christmas my dad was here and the fun continued! All the while these two could only hang out and spectate. 




My mom (Vivi) and her photo book gift.

Lila's present from uncle Levi!

My dad, Poppy, looking at his photo book with Lila.

Evie checking Poppy out.

* The refrigerator. While I hate that I may think of this Christmas as "the year the refrigerator died", that's just how it goes right? I mean, the ones I can remember growing up were "the year the tree fell over", "the year I got Jem and all of the Holograms", and "the year Granny stayed with us and set up an awful, creepy clown decorated tree". Regardless, the day after Christmas we purchased a beautiful new refrigerator.

* Decorating with Lila. It was a bit of a science to figure out how to successfully decorate our big tree with Lila's "help". Seth got a system going that went incredibly well. What was more interesting though is how well she undecorated the tree. Seriously, I took all of the ornament boxes out and she would carefully put the ornaments in each box, close it, and put it in the storage bin. She treated some of them like they were puzzles due to their packaging. It was quite impressive. All the while she was saying "Christmas is over mommy" like she was getting the closure she needed by helping put the ornaments away.

* Random extras...I will remember Lila's steadfast love of the Charlie Brown Christmas movie...the way she sings jingle bells and asks to start with "dashing through the snow" so she can do the laughing part...the way she now refers to Oreos as Santa cookies...the way Evie watched Lila open presents the way she watches Lila do everything else, with complete adoration.

We are so blessed in so many ways. I hope your holiday left you feeling this way as well.  ;-)

1 comment:

  1. the "Random Extras" of this post make me so happy :) I miss you all SO SO much!!

    ReplyDelete

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