Christmas – Part One

Santa?

Oh no, that’s just BB modeling a lovely Santa hat (and so cheerfully, I might add!).  As usual, we traveled to Seattle this year for Christmas.  This time, however, we were able to drive!  Vincent always does well in the car.  Other than a few protests at the end of the trip, Wesley also did very well on the drive (in other words, he slept most of the way!).

Posing with Rachel

On Christmas Eve, we got together with my family to exchange presents and eat yummy food.  Since Rachel wasn’t able to join us, we web-cammed her in, so she could participate to some degree.

For some reason we didn’t take many pictures this year.  I’m sure that the changed ratio of  kids:parents influenced that to some degree!  We typically switch locations between Bekah’s place and Jon’s; this year Bekah and Ryan hosted us.  I’m grateful for portable family traditions.  Despite the distance, the three girls still get matching pajama pants each year.  We still make sure we have 7 layer dip and bacon-wrapped water chestnuts (and cheese ball/salmon dip if Bek or Jon are in charge – I’m not particularly tied to either, so I often forget!).  No matter where we are, it feels like Christmas with just a few simple traditions.

Wesley snoozed as much as he participated

Vincent continues to maintain his star status during Christmas, although soon Wesley will be competing for attention I’m sure (first he needs to figure out how to move his hands a little more accurately).

Wesley stayed happy for most of the evening, and Vincent showcased his good manners.  I’m grateful that he listens well and has a cheerful disposition most of the time.  He’s a fun kid to be around.

I really enjoy Christmas – the time with family, the good food, traditions – everything about it.  It’s such a great time of year.  It’s even more fun with kids, I’ve discovered.  Watching Vincent open presents, and getting excited about new toys — it’s awesome.  This year may have been the best yet with him.  He’s old enough to really get the whole gift giving aspect — which clearly emerged during the wrapping phase right before Christmas:

While I was wrapping presents before Christmas, Vincent got very excited about the whole process.  After asking for scraps of wrapping paper and (many) pieces of tape, he disappeared into his room.  Reappearing with a carefully packaged present, he handed it to me and said, “momma it’s for you, and it’s NOT for christmas so you can open it RIGHT NOW.”  He continued to wrap his toys up for me for the next hour or so.

Eventually, he wanted to wrap some of the gifts I was wrapping for me to open — and I told him that those things were for other people to open.  He thought carefully about that and disappeared again (after asking for more paper and (many) more pieces of tape).  He reappeared with another present that he said was for “someone else.”  When I asked who (expecting him to say Daddy), he thought about it and answered “Auntie Bekah.” And he wanted to bring it to Seattle so she could open it.

Vincent playing with his new transformer

Hmm.  How far should I let this go?  I knew that he had likely put more of his own toys inside the present.  I told him, “Okay sweetie.  We can bring it to Auntie Bekah, but remember this is a present.  So if you are going to give it to her to open, that means she gets to keep what is inside the present.”  He looked at me for a loooooong minute.  “Okay.  But this present is for Auntie Bekah AND for me.” Pretty happy with his solution to this problem, he plopped his present to Auntie Bekah (and himself!!) onto the pile of presents.  And so they opened it together on Christmas Eve (and his missing kitty and Woody doll made the drive back home with us safe in Vincent’s backpack).

I love watching my child(ren!) grow and develop/strengthen aspects of their personalities.  For me, Christmas is an especially poignant time to step back from work/school/life happenings and just soak up family time and love.