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| From 2011 December |
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| From 2011 December |
On Christmas Day we spread the process of opening presents out over the entire day. This was somewhat intentional, as we decided to only do Santa stockings before church to not be rushed and then leave presents from relatives we were going to Skype with for while we were talking to them in the late afternoon.
But we didn't count on it taking 2 hours to open presents between the 5 of us who were here. But we tried not to pressure Nicholas and let him play with presents as he opened them if he wanted. In general I think this was a good idea, although at one point after both Joe and my Dad fell asleep while Nicholas played with his pretend vegetables (you can cut them and velcro them back together!), we did prompt him (unsuccessfully the first few times) to move on.
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| From 2011 December |
And we ended up leaving his big present from us until the very end of the evening just because there wasn't time before then.
I enjoyed Christmas more this year than I have in probably 15 years and it had absolutely nothing to do with presents I got. As we put Nicholas' pretend kitchen together on Christmas Eve and waited for Santa to come, I realized that I was giddy with excitement and anticipation.
2 is such a great age for Christmas because Nicholas was old enough to really enjoy all elements of it and yet didn't yet have expectations. With each new set of presents he was surprised and would have been happy with only a small fraction of what he got. He was so excited about each present that he just wanted to stop and play with it, with no attention to the pile of presents still waiting. He was thrilled on Christmas Eve that Santa was coming but it was because Santa is like a celebrity from his perspective and he couldn't believe Santa would come to his house!
Here are some of my favorite Christmas pictures (with more of course in the Gallery):
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| From 2011 December |
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| From 2011 December |
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| From 2011 December |
Not sure that I've heard of Christmas Tamales, but it sure sounds yummy! We have spread out Christmas over about a week, which was nice. Glad that we're done, but only a little. :)
ReplyDeleteMerry (belated) Christmas from our family to yours!