Monday, December 28, 2009

Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone! The Atwoods hope you had a fabulous, happy, joyful, peaceful time celebrating the birth of our Lord with your family. Here's what we were up to that day:


For the first time in my life, we set our cookies and a carrot for Santa and his Reindeer. The entire time Anne was upstairs sleeping, I was in awe of the fact that she was beleiving that downstairs a man in a red suit was going to bring her presents and eat the cookie and carrot. Never having Santa growing up (yes my mother was one who didn't want to lie to her children....), this is quite the odd tradition. In the morning when Anne came down and saw the carrot half "eaten", cookie crumbs and a half glass of milk, her excitment was catching and adorable.

We started out the morning opening stockings, which had been placed outside the kids' doors, but miraculously were left untouched during the night. I have a sneaking suspiscion that next year we will not be so lucky.

Even Jamie got a stocking, filled with some baby cookies (banana flavor, his all time favorite!), cereal bars and a book.

Jamie couldn't wait to get started on his treats!

Anne's loot!

We tried to make the first peek at the presents a big "Ta-Da!" moment and Anne was definately excited, but again, I think next year she will be even more because she will know to look forward to it. I don't think she has a memory of last year, thus no reference point for this year.



We had lots of fun opening gifts-Anne was bursting with excitement to open her gifts and asked after every one to open the next! Initially I thought this was a sign of ungratefulness, but looking back, the poor kid was just too excited!

Jamie did not get the concept of opening gifts-even though we showed him several times how to rip paper off. We thought he'd be all over it, but he wasn't. However, he did actually seem to get that he had new toys! He played with his new toys and was a very content little guy-even after we realized his breakfast was delayed by over an hour and he should be been fussy because he was so hungry!



This is a gift that Anne's preschool sent home with her. I had no idea what it might be-really! This is her first year in school, my first born child, so I didn't know what to expect. When I opened it, it was a foam ornament with her picture on it. I nearly cried-partly because it was so sweet and partly because it was completely unexpected. As you can see, however, Anne was not nearly as touched by the guesture!
Later that day we headed over to my sister's house in St. Charles for dinner and more gifts. The gift opening there was a bit crazy and overwhelming-gift after gift being torn open without much time to contemplate what was recieved or even to look at who was giving! This is competely out of tradition in my household and growing up and I think it was mainly done to keep the 2 kids happy and unfussy. However, NEXT year, I am going to vote that either we do it more slowly or we let the kids open their gifts first and while they are playing with everything, the adults open their gifts so that we can actually take in what we got and look the giver in the eye and say thank you!
All in all it was a great Christmas. The Atwoods are coming into their own, figuring out our traditions and getting it all together. Hope you had an equally Merry Christmas!

1 comment:

Nicole said...

The picture of the kids with the gift under the tree seriously could be a Christmas card or a painting or something. It's really sweet.
How neat that you got to "experience Santa" for the first time with the kids!