A couple of years ago, Brian's family began the tradition of doing our Christmas the weekend before December 25th, which works out great (well, besides the fact that it requires me to have all gifts purchased/wrapped a full week early!). In the past, we would spend Christmas Eve/Day running from house to house to house, which was crazy and stressful. With the new plan, we do the Saturday before Christmas at Brian's parent's house and are joined by his sisters and their kids as well as Mema and Papa Hickman. Then the next day (Sunday) we go to Mema Shelton's house and do Christmas with Brian's Aunt, Uncle and cousins.
So that's how we spent our weekend! Charlotte and Jensen's first Christmas celebrations. I believe now is the time where I am supposed to describe the joy I found in watching my babies open gifts and experience the holiday for the first time. And describe each gift they received so that they can have a detailed record of their first Christmas. But really, I can't describe it accurately because it all
flew by. It flew by in a crazy mess of cousins and missed naps and chaos and wrapping paper and grandparents and food and laughter and meltdowns and more gifts than any seven-month-olds could ever need. Charlotte and Jensen are exhausted. I am exhausted. And seriously, they got
so much stuff. Stuff that they did not really appreciate at the time (due to aforementioned missed naps + general overwhelmed-ness) but that I can't wait to watch them enjoy. Books, games, puzzles, clothes, toys...oh, and an awesome new Vitamix blender (well, that one's more for me...but it's to help me make their food, so it counted as a gift for them. If I happen to use it to make a margarita or two, well, that will just be an added bonus!).
There was
way too much going on for me to take many pics, but here are just a few:
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| The tiny tree plus gifts. Is that a trash bag used as wrapping paper in the bottom right corner?? |
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| Why yes, yes it is. Gift wrapping is not a talent of mine. Brian saw my beautiful wrapping job and started laughing, so I told him to can it or he could do the wrapping next year. He canned it. |
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| My lil' reindeer and my lil' polar bear in their Christmas outfits from Uncle Dot and Aunt Biff. |
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| Polar bear paws! |
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| Charlotte and Jensen with Sarah and Kate at Mema Shelton's house. They are Brian's cousins but I consider them MY cousins, too...because they are awesome. Love them! |
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| Charlotte and her Mema Shelton. It was funny because most of the family hadn't seen the babies in awhile and of course they were all shocked at how much Charlotte is a mini-Brian! |
I was about to write that our Shelton Christmas was over, but I just remembered that last night we ran out of Brian's parents house without opening our stockings (which his family always saves for last) because Charlotte and Jensen had were well past their bedtime, and they'd
had it and needed to be put to bed
now. So we still have that to look forward to, along with two more Christmas celebrations with my family. Hopefully we'll be able to slow things down a bit, take everything in, and make some memories of our first Christmas with our sweet babies.
Just be sure to rinse said blender after margarita making before baby food making! It's the gift that keeps on giving! (Does it count for a gift for me too if you make me a marg??) :)
ReplyDeletePS...just wait til a couple years from now they are shredding the paper so fast you dont' even see what they got until you get home and sort through it! "Where and who did that come from?!"