Let's back up actually, and share a few pics from Christmas eve. It was a quiet holiday around here, just the three of us, but being our first as a family (and our first at home, with our very own tree and all), it was a nice opportunity to start a few family traditions. As a little girl, I remember getting pizza on Christmas eve, being allowed to open one present - always, coincidentally, new pajamas - getting into our new pajamas, hopping in the car, and driving around whatever town we lived in at the time to check out the lights and decorations. I keep meaning to ask my Dad if the pizza memory was an annual tradition or a one-year blip that has stuck out in my mind. Either way, ordering pizza on Christmas eve is officially a Grigsby family tradition. After that we let Elias open one gift. 
Pajamas! Who'd have guessed?! Since it gets dark here by about 4:30 these days, we were able to drive around and check out the lights well before Elias's bedtime. Even so, he fell asleep within minutes of beginning our Christmas eve journey (that 5 o'clock nap might explain some of the difficulty we had getting him to bed that night...), missing most of the light show.
Neal and I had planned on watching A Christmas Story after Elias went to bed, but that didn't exactly happen, as explained here. Instead, we crashed as soon as Elias was finally out for the night, visions of uninterrupted sleep dancing in our heads. The next morning began with business as usual.
Yep, that's the tree, in the nursery, where the crib used to be. On a sidenote, when Elias outgrew his pack 'n' play bassinet around the three-month mark, we decided to disassemble and re-assemble his crib in our bedroom (dealing with the whole early breastfeeding weaning drama at the time, I wasn't ready to transition him to his own room as well). Turns out the room we picked for the nursery, previously the catch-all room/office/studio/spare bedroom, is just about the worst room possible for trying to get a kid that fights sleep to take naps and go to bed at a reasonable hour, what with the constant noise from the neighbors walking up and down the stairs, accessing their entry to the basement, clomping around upstairs, etc. Our room is much quieter and now that we're ready for Elias to be sleeping in his own room, we're thinking of switching the rooms altogether. Anyway, that daunting project is for another post, but that's why there was space in the nursery for the tree. We confine the cats to the living room at night (that's another long story) and we were worried we'd wake up to find the tree toppled, ornaments broken, water everywhere. In hindsight, I think it would've been fine in the living room; the cats don't seem all that interested in the tree. But at the time, I couldn't stand the thought of having to deal with the potential mess that might have been left by a couple of curious kitties.
Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, baby's first Christmas morning. Not surprisingly, Elias didn't seem to know what to make of all the gifts and the wrapping paper and the constant picture-taking. He did seem very alert and curious about what was going on but the whole opening presents thing was a little tricky for him.
We started with a few stocking stuffers. This stocking is actually more of a place-holder until the day we find the perfect stocking for Elias. Santa left him some stacking cups and some Method Baby body lotion in his stocking. How did Santa know that Mom just loves that new Method Baby rice milk and mallow bubble bath??
From the stocking we moved on to the gifts under the tree, helping Elias open the first few himself. As the hunger started to set in and Elias's optimal morning nap time drew near, we sped up the process a bit for him, opening a generous helping of clothes and toys from Santa, family, and friends.
I think we were more excited to play with his new toys than he was initially. Top picks include a little green rattle that he can actually hold onto, a Leap Frog Spin & Sing Alphabet Zoo that he loves to spin over and over, not giving the "narrator" much chance of calling out the animal name or sound that corresponds to the letter on the wheel, and the stacking cups that Santa left in his stocking. He enjoys banging a couple of those together and Neal is convinced he was practicing the motion in a semi-sleepy state this morning when he changed his diaper at the earlier than usual wake-up call of 5:45 a.m. Clearly, Elias was eager to pick up where we left off yesterday.
The rest of the day was much like a weekend day, with a lot of calls to and from family, Neal and I alternating time with Elias, trying out his new toys. We had an early dinner of ham, mac 'n' cheese, red potatoes, green beans (with turkey bacon - that's a twist on a Grigsby family tradition), freshly baked rolls, and a little white wine that left both of us feeling sleepier than usual for the rest of the day. The weather was pretty mild (a welcome break after last weekend's endless snow) so we ventured out for a walk around the neighborhood before beginning our usual evening routine.
Not bad for our first Christmas together. As much as I enjoyed our trips to California the past few years, making three or four stops in a week, week and a half tops, I have to admit that part of me was really looking forward to staying home this year, now that we've started our family. Babble's Bad Parent blog had a timely post recently on just this very topic. And yet as the holiday approached, I felt a little sad that it would just be the three of us. I guess in a perfect world, we'd live within driving distance of all our family and close friends, so that we could enjoy Christmas morning together and then spend the afternoon and evening with the extended brood. But as things stand, I have to say, it was pretty nice to stay in our pj's for most of the day, eat what and when we wanted, and enjoy an unedited commentary on the gifts we opened. Just kidding.
I have a few videos I'll post later. In the meantime, I hope you had a wonderful holiday and have very little to do today, this "bridge" between Christmas and the weekend...
2 comments:
I really like that idea of new pajamas and a drive to see Christmas lights! What a great tradition. It's funny because we also have the same problem of not being able to find/agree upon a stocking. We have had placeholder stocking for 4 years now! Seriously. We even bought a placeholder stocking for Ivan, obviously before he was born, knowing that we would eventually have a child. If you find some nice stockings, please do share and maybe we can finally get our permanent stockings, although after 4 years, maybe these are our common-law stockings or something :)
I have fond memories of the pj's/lights tradition so we've tried to continue it over the past few years with limited success, depending on where we were and who we were staying with.
As for the stockings, Neal and I have nice, knitted stockings that we got for each other one year, I believe at Macy's. The funny part is we'd decided to get each other stockings that year and coincidentally got each other almost the exact same ones! The bad part about knitted stockings, however, is that whatever you put in and then try to take out inevitably gets all tangled up in the yarn. I'll keep you posted, though, if and when we find a good one for Elias. I think you may be right, though - you might, by California law, be stuck with your placeholder of the past four years :)
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