The Catch-up Christmas Post

Yeah, I know I'm a lazy blogger, and with Christmas come and gone, no one is really all that interested in seeing pictures of the event anymore. We're probably all on Christmas overload. But bear with me, since I feel obligated to talk about it.

I worked a half a day on Christmas eve, and then made the mad dash all over town. One of my coworkers was kind enough to volunteer her husband to play Santa for us and assmeble J's new bike, which is really the only thing that he asked for this year. Bless them for doing this for us! I never would have found the time to do it around here AND keep it a secret.

That freed me up to get all of the other gifts wrapped and under the tree before picking munchkin up from Abuela's house.

He and the nephew came home to find a tree just brimming with presents, and much inspection ensued.

At one point the nephew took a header straight down into a pile of gifts, and required assistance to get out without ripping half of them open. Gotta love the enthusiasm of little boys.

That night, before bed, J had to go outside and sprinkle glittered oatmeal on the lawn. He received this as a goodie at his school Christmas party with a little poem attached that read "Sprinkle on the lawn at night. The moon will make it sparkle bright! As Santa's reindeer fly and roam, this will guide them to your home!" What a cute little idea!


Of course, we left a note for Santa along with cookies and milk, and a bowl of carrots and celery for the reindeer. Can't have enough things to bribe Santa with, I suppose.

Morning arrived, and J was so excited to step out into the living room to find that Santa hadn't forgotten him!


It was a little strange, this being the first year that my parents haven't been here for the holidays. But we made the best of it by making use of Skype to all be together during the gift opening. It wasn't quite the same, but it did work out well, and it was really nice to get to be together in some way.

J loved all of his gifts, but the winner of the day was the Snuggie made for him by Nana. He's been pining for one ever since seeing the commercial for it several months ago, and begging me to order him one. Funny what captures a child's heart. Nana did an amazing job, making his out of dinosaur fleece, and even managing to package it along with the very same identical book light that comes with the 'real' one. Way to go Nana! Despite it being 80 degrees on Christmas day, J stayed snuggled under it for the rest of the day, not even getting up to open the rest of his gifts.



Handmade Christmas was a huge success, I think. Everything received and everything given seemed to be a hit. Of course, there were plenty of purchased gifts for the boys as well, but certainly not the amount as in years past. And the fact that the handmade ones were loved more by J than the store bought ones made me a super-proud Mama.

This post is getting long, so I'll save the handmade recap for another time. I don't know if we'll all agree to do it again this year, but I know that I'm certainly up for trying to keep the tradition up.

Hope everyone's 2009 is off to a great start.