Christmas

We celebrated Christmas this year in our own home around our own tree for the first time. My parents arrived Christmas Eve and and spent the night in our house so they could see the kids open their presents Christmas morning. Christmas Eve we had a nice salmon dinner and then Norah told us all the Christmas story using paper figurines (like the kind you would use for a flannel board) and read the Polar Express with Grandpa Dean. I let Norah open one present early: a homemade flannel nightgown from Mimi and then she put out carrots for the reindeer and cookies and milk for Santa. There was a bit of debate over whether Santa should have 2 or 3 cookies. Norah won and three cookies were left out and she was off to bed. Norah was so excited for Christmas that she had trouble falling asleep and got out of bed a few times to see if Santa had come. At one point we thought she was asleep for sure and my dad helped himself to an Oreo only to have Norah come out to check on things one last time. She immediately saw there was a cookie missing and everyone sort of froze for a second. Thankfully we hadn’t put out any gifts yet so I told Norah the truth and let Grandpa Dean take the fall.  Norah was appalled that he had eaten one of the cookies – the look on her face was priceless –  a mix of shock and utter disappointment in his character. He tried to reason with her that Santa really only needed two cookies since so many children were leaving them but Norah reprimanded him and marched over to the pantry to replace the cookie. It was so much fun to see her excitement and belief in Santa but I did feel a tinge of guilt for lying to her. Hopefully she’ll forgive me.

We couldn’t trust our kids to not unwrap presents so we didn’t put out any until Christmas morning. Once everything was out I thought it looked pretty magical.Santa left Alice a Rocking moose, a toy remote and snack containers. He brought Norah a scooter(thank you Susan), binoculars and a magnifying glass. They were all big hits. Of course they were also spoiled by both sets of grandparents as were Bryan and I. We mostly took video of the girls opening presents but I did get a picture of one of Norah’s favorite gifts: new ballet slippers from MimiShe was also pretty excited about her ukulele. A few weeks before Christmas Norah started telling me that she hoped Santa would bring her a banjo. It was so random that I dismissed it but she brought it up again and again. I asked her a few different times what she’d want if she could only have one present and she consistently said a banjo. I found a toy banjo but it didn’t really make music and real banjos were way to expensive to satisfy a whim so my parents bought her a ukulele as a compromise. Our primary pianist is a Ukulele enthusiast and she gave me some preschool age appropriate music to try with Norah so that is going to be one of my projects for 2013.

My favorite gift was a growth chart Bryan made me. Norah measured 37.25 inches and Alice measured 29.5 inches.Bryan making us pancakes Christmas morning with his new griddle