James's "First" Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! We're counting it as James's "first" after spending last year in the hospital with RSV. A few weeks before Christmas, we went out to the tree farm to mark our tree. It was bitter cold that day, but we still scoured the entire selection before putting our name card on a tree (of course, it was one of the first ones we'd seen...). That night we enjoyed a wonderful fire and started putting out some decorations. (We didn't want to do the tree until after James's birthday.)

We were so excited to have Auntie Peg come up for a holiday visit! She arrived a day after the first big snowfall of the year. Dan went out and chopped down the tree that day, and we decorated it that night after James went to sleep. We decided to go easy on the decorating (we only put about 25-30% of our decorations on the tree), unsure how James would react/interact with it all. The next morning he oohed and ahhed quite a bit. There continues to be much pointing and saying, "see." Fortunately, he hasn't dismantled it!


In our holiday celebrations, we left James home with his grandparents and took Auntie Peg in to the city to see the windows and the tree and "White Christmas" on Broadway. So fun! (also so cold! Glad we left James at home.)

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is wrapping gifts. I enjoy making the paper match up neatly and tying pretty bows. Well, not so easy with my little elf-in-training. He LOVED playing with the tape (it was pretty hilarious watching him deal with the stickiness) and the rolls of paper. Many of our gifts looked like the paper had been used many times (which is something we've been known to do), but in fact, all the paper was right off the roll! Also, I couldn't be bothered to make things quite as neat and perfect as before because I was busy hiding the "pokeys" (pens, scissors) and wrangling the tape & paper from James. Funny.


On Christmas Eve, we went to the 4:30 service at our newly renovated church. Again with the oohs, ahhs and sees. So cute. James did quite well for most of the service. We did feed him a cheese stick (after all, it was his dinner time), and there was a bit of fussing when the stick ran out. At the end of the service we sing "Silent Night" and hold candles. James seemed very interested in the candles (I was holding two, and Dan was holding James), so I blew one out and let it cool off then gave it to him. Well, what did he do? Try to eat it of course-- it looks just like a cheese stick! Funny.


Grandma & Grandpa were at our house for supper after church. We then visited with friends (whose 6-year old daughter Heather was certain James kept saying her name; one of his catch phrases is "hi there") before having some nog and going to bed.


Christmas morning was nice. The three of us ate cinnamon rolls then opened our stockings. James ripped our cracker crowns right off our heads. I mean really ripped them! His is the only one that didn't get ripped in half, but he would not wear it. He did open some of his gifts, but we had to laugh because he kept going over to his toy basket to take out "old" toys. And, of course, his wooden spoon and empty gift wrap tube were always close at hand. He did kiss the penguin in the book from Uncle P and Auntie Ali. He also said "vroom vroom" and rolled his new wooden cars from Nana & Pops around quite a bit. He turned into a pumpkin and went down for a nap before he even opened any gifts from us (true fact: the few small items I got for him remain wrapped and under the tree today, on the seventh day of Christmas).


When James got up from his nap we headed up to Ramsey for dinner and gifts with the grands. Well, we weren't there long before I heard James exploring under the tree. I looked in the living room to see what he was up to. He had found his gift-- a Tonka dump truck! It was wrapped in cellophane, so he could see it. He was saying "vroom, vroom" and pushing the wrapped truck all around the living room. SO CUTE! Grandpa had fun putting James in it and pushing him around the house.


All in all, it was a very fun holiday. James is still dazzled by the tree and other decorations ("see!"). We're so happy to have been healthy & home to celebrate together. We look forward to many more wonderful holidays!