Walking Backwards

Ah, the house to myself for a little while. Well, not really to myself, the baby and Jon are still here, but it seems like I'm alone after having nine people here for so many days. Everyone else is out on the town. Strangely enough, I am really ready to get back to my boring day-to-day routine. The holidays are just too chaotic for me, and for Nico to I'm sure. I guess this is a good time to discuss the events of my holidays as Nicholas is watching one of his baby videos. We shall see if I actually get done.


Charla and Hank arrived two days before Christmas and we all had dinner of homemade lasagna (yay!) and just talked for the night. When they unloaded their car, my jaw hit the floor. The brought in enough presents to fill our front room, literally. They had six huge rubbermaid containers filled with gifts. I thought that was all they had brought and was still in awe, but they explained that that was just the "small"gifts. It was excessive. I didn't know what to say. Charla explained that they had also brought gifts for my parents and gifts that their family had sent, but it still seemed like a lot. Especially compared to what we had been able to buy. My mom's gifts to us had also arrived by UPS that night and our tiny tree was dwarfed.


The next day I took my Mother-in-law to Hill Country Weavers to look at spinning and knitting supplies. Most of the stuff she was interested in was sold out for the holidays so we went to visit my brother at Whole Foods and pick up some of the last items we needed for Christmas dinner. I was amazed to find that they had blood oranges. For some reason, I was under the illusion that it wouldn't be busy on Christmas Eve. Ha! How foolish. We did make it home alive, but slightly disheveled. That evening we invited friends over and my mother arrived. I roasted two chickens and had plates of appetizers for the thirteen people in my house. After eating we all walked around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights on people's houses. It was really nice. To me, this is when it started feeling like Christmas. We got home and Nicholas opened up one gift, a puzzle block of the ark with 26 matching animals. Well. . . I say HE opened it. Then we patiently waited for him to go to sleep so we could put out his gifts. He decided to finally go to bed at one in the morning. We were in bed by two after stockings were filled and gifts put together.


Christmas morning dawned when the baby woke up at 8:30. We had put up the baby gate the night before so he couldn't get to his gifts. We ate blueberry muffins and waited for my brother to wake up and my mother to arrive. When everyone got there, except my father who was arriving late, we started opening gifts. Nicholas was totally uninterested in his gifts after the baby gate was taken down and just ran around the house. I got some great stuff: an ice cream maker, three pairs of toe socks, a subscription to 'National Geographic', a chenille blanket, a stone casting kit for garden markers, a silver locket, a coffee press, a book, tons of DVD's, a Kronos Quartet CD, a Target giftcard, a Dremmel, a breadmaker, and a bumper sticker that reads "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos". Nicholas got more than any baby should ever receive. In order for it to all fit in his playroom, we are going to give a lot of his old toys to charity. My mom bought Joe and I a refrigerator to replace our thirty year old model. Compared to our 15 sq. ft., brown model, our new fridge looks ultra-sleek.


I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen making Christmas dinner, until my dad showed up. They all sat down to eat and Nico had his first tantrum of the day. I put him down for his nap while everyone ate. We then emptied our stockings of their fruit and candy (Jon got me a honey spoon). By about 8 o'clock every one of us was ready to go to bed, except Nicholas of course. We just spent the ret of our evening reading and snacking on junk food. Joe gave me a break and did all of the dishes and took care of the baby.


So that was my Christmas in a long-winded explanation. I have left out some of the more gory details for obvious reasons. I will try and post some pictures later, we have quite a few of them.