clean and simple: Christmas Festivities

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Christmas Festivities

I never got around to following up on the Christmas festivities. It's time that get that wrapped up.
We had such a good Christmas here in St. Louis. It was relatively low key, but so fun and special.

Christmas Eve we went to dinner at Charlie Gitto's, a restaurant here in town. Laura and Stevie were in town. D's aunt, uncle and cousins also came. After dinner, we headed back to Papa and SheShe's for luminaries, the nativity and dessert.

W played Joseph. Lizzy was baby Jesus (who climbed out of the manger). Laura was the angel, and her costume was spot on. Johanna played Mary. Sarah played an angel. And Thomas played, well, the animals and wisemen. Good job, Thomas.

We weren't sure how Christmas morning was going to work out. We had church at 9:00 a.m. We hadn't put any presents under the tree before Christmas (W's curiosity has a way of unwrapping things), so we knew W wouldn't head to the tree first thing. The stockings were filled, and W would see them when he woke up and came down to our room. So D and I just listened for W in the morning. Around 7:30 he woke up and came down. We pretended to be asleep and just listened. First he stepped on the dog, then he just kept saying, "Oh, it's so cute, Mommy. It's so cute." Then he brought in his new Zoo Parent shirt that had a picture of a mama and baby gorilla on it (a gift from D's boss). That was how Christmas started.

We Skyped with my parents who watched W open his stocking, which included several Thomas the Train pieces. Soon enough, it was time to get ready and head to church.

Following church, we came home and headed for the Christmas tree. W had been asking for a Buzz Lightyear for months. Both D and I were so excited for W to open this gift. He opened more train pieces. Then the Toy Story 3 movie. Then mini Toy Story action figures. And then....the big Buzz. The excitement was priceless. The gasp was perfect. He was over the moon. Any remaining gifts didn't really matter, including mine and D's because we spent the next 20 minutes trying to extricate Buzz from the packaging. I'm serious.

Next we headed to SheShe and Papa's for brunch and more Christmasing. Grandpa D brought these flying disk launcher things. They were a hit. The remote control helicopters were the humorous highlight. And Laura got right to work opening her embroidery shop with her new machine.