Merry Christmas!

On Christmas Eve, James was rather excited. He quite enjoyed the building of the creche during our church service. This year he carried Mary up to the altar, and was so serious and into it. Cute! I think his favorite hymn of the night was "Angels We Have Heard on High." He was singing it as we put on jammies later in the night!

After church Grandma & Grandpa joined us for the feast of the fish. (No seven fishes here, just shrimp.) We paid a short visit to the neighbors' then headed back home to put on jammies and get ready for bed. No late night meltdowns this year. Although James did yell at Grandpa for eating Santa's cookies, "Stop eating those cookies, Grandpa! Those are Santa's cookies!" James then plated the cookies-- five chocolate cookies and three chocolate chip cookies and put out a cup of milk. Then it was time for The Polar Express and Twas the Night Before Christmas.

James didn't sleep particularly well, so he woke up rather groggy. (One of the times he'd woken during the night, he called out "Santa is in the chimney.") Thus he was not quite as ebullient as we'd imagined he might be as he walked into the living room. However, he was quite happy to see the gifts. He also liked finding his (which read "James" in big letters). We did take a break for some Christmas pancakes.

It was relatively calm, and when we finished opening gifts, we had a little time to relax and play before heading to Grandpa and Grandma's house.

James was excited to see that Santa had left gifts for him in Ramsey as well.

Most exciting was the Hess truck, which was one of the two things James was hoping Santa would bring (the other being a driver for the train that goes around the tree...).

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This year James joined us to watch Elf, and even acted out a few scenes. The first was the Buddy vs. Gimbell's Santa scene; "I'm taking off your beard, Santa!" James said to Dan. The other was the mail room scene; James was breaking out the dance moves-- hilarious!

Once we got the car packed up and started heading home, James fell asleep almost immediately. So Dan and I enjoyed some Christmas tunes and drove around looking at the lights. James was good and asleep when we pulled into the driveway, so we successfully transferred him from the car to his bed where he slept like a log all night.