On Sunday evening, I started what usually works out to be an arduous task - gather all of Paul's Christmas loot and figure out how to get it all in the car. Amazingly, all the relatives who gave him gifts actually listened and gave him something small. It took me about an hour to consolidate everything and pack the car. And for the first time ever, I have room to spare on my return trip!
Looks like it decided to snow in Tennessee and Virginia tonight, so hopefully the forecast is right about it being clear after the 2nd. Now if I could just get to sleep so I could get an early start tomorrow...
I think one of the harder hurdles to jump in a young marriage is how you're going to spend your winter holidays. We're relatively lucky. Neither set of our parents commands our presence at holiday events. They're happy to have us when we can visit, but they understand that traveling 1200 miles during the holidays isn't really fun especially once you add a toddler and a puppy to the mix. I have friends who have been married longer than I have, and they're still stuck in a guilt-o-war over which set of parents gets to have them for the holidays.
We're doing a variant of Robertson Christmas, which is something my grandmother Mary started the year I was born. She just asked that her kids save every third Christmas for a big family get together. There were years when not everyone could make it, but my grandma always wished them a Merry Christmas and invited them to come when they could. We're doing a variant of it where we spend one Christmas in Louisiana, and one Christmas at our house.
It got a little bit harder this year, because we have to figure out where we stand on Santa traditions. At my house, we opened one present on Christmas Eve, read Santa Mouse, left cookies for Santa, and a tiny piece of cheese for Santa Mouse, and then we were sent to bed. Then I'd always try to wake my parents up starting at 5am.
We had presents and stockings from Santa, presents from family, and presents that were from the Underworld. The Underworld gave you socks, underwear, clothes, and other things that a child has a hard time getting excited over. We were allowed to look in our stockings before our parents got up, as well as play with any unwrapped Christmas presents with our names on them. (This bought my parents another hour of rest.)
Once my parents were up and had their morning coffee, we all took turns opening presents. Since I was the oldest and therefore learned to read first, I was usually in charge of passing out presents while my mom took pictures and my dad fiddled with the video camera.
Clayton and I will probably open our presents from each other on Christmas Eve after Paul goes to bed. We'll do stockings on Christmas morning and Paul can unwrap his presents then. We'll cook the ham, and I may build my mechanical awesome while the ham is cooking. After Paul is down for his nap, we might play a few games on the console (most likely Lego StarWars for me).
Last year, dealing with Birthmas (celebrating Christmas and Paul's birthday twice within a week) got to be a little much for Paul and I. We decided to head that off at the pass by visiting my parents and in-laws over Thanksgiving instead. It was not nearly as stressful as last year, although my car was still full of birthday and Christmas gifts for our return trip.
Paul wasn't overwhelmed either, and he really enjoyed unwrapping his presents. He actually played with each one for 10-15 minutes before moving to the next one. After presents, we had dinner (chicken tetrazini at Maw Maw and PawPaw's and Johnny's Pizza at Granny and Grandpa's house) followed by cake. Since my only niece and nephew are on my husband's side of the family, we took a group Christmas picture of the kids and let them exchange presents afterwards.
This year, Christmas will be mainly Christmas, with one exception. When I was growing up, we always let the birthday child pick a birthday dinner. We usually do a ham on Christmas, so Paul gets to pick our dinner on Christmas Eve. Given that he's been asking "When makin' pizza?" when I ask him what he wants for lunch every day, I strongly suspect we'll be having homemade pizza.
Christmas really snuck up on me this year and I haven't even really started my Christmas baking or wrapping presents. But I am making progress on toy assembly at least. How's everyone else's list going?
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When I was a kid, Santa always brought me an apple and an orange in the bottom of my stocking. I can't remember if this started after we read one of the Little House books . I never really got into eating fruit, so I'd take advantage of the fact that my brother was 5 years younger, and trade my fruit for all of his reese's peanut butter cups and anything else looks good. Since I'm not a fruit person, it never occured to me that Paul might actually enjoy getting fruit in his stocking.
He spent much of after Christmas "sharing" fruit with anyone who had something that might look good. He had apples, oranges, strawberries and cherries with his daddy. He also surprised his 3 year old cousin by eating half of his banana. I think next year, Santa might have to fix up a fruit basket to share with Daddy. I'm pretty happy that Paul enjoys fruit so much, since I'm not the best role model in that department.
Travel and Other Wanderings | Caitlin, 2008, January 1 11:36 pm | 
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