Christmas Part 1

People often ask if this was our first Christmas with Ellie and I have to catch myself before I say "Why, yes!" Last year was such a blur I really don't remember much about it. I know people were here, I know gifts were exchanged, I have the pictures to prove it. But this really felt like our first Christmas to me, so I was pretty excited. I had way too much fun picking out gifts for Ellie. I also didn't anticipate the generosity of our families, although I should have because they've always been very generous with us. The result was way too much stuff under the tree after Santa came.

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When I was little, Santa always wrapped his gifts in white tissue paper or comics. I was so excited to see that he kept up that tradition with Ellie.

This wasn't a traditional Christmas in that Mom and Dad got up before Ellie and were getting anxious for her to awake. Finally, we heard her stirring in her crib, so we got her up and she dove right in.

Aunt S. came by to help us, and thank goodness she did because we would have been there all day if we left it up to Ellie. She sat in a chair as any reasonable adult would, so that means of course that her head got chopped off in about 50% of the photos I took.

Fortunately, I realized the mistake and was able to get some good ones.

{new favorite chair}

The funniest part of the morning came when we opened the gift from our daycare provider, a baby doll. Once she laid eyes on that baby, everything else was forgotten. I didn't know that a one year old could insist on anything, but insist she did. She wanted that baby out of the package, and NOW wasn't soon enough.

{Daddy trying to get her to notice the beautiful "Quillow" from G. Grandma B}

After the initial obsession wore off she actually did go back to playing with her other toys, but we were all a little shocked at the vehemence with which she pursued that baby at first.

After breakfast, she got all dressed up to go to Christmas Mass and enjoyed her new chair and books for a bit before we headed out the door to start Christmas Part 2.

To be continued...