The First Celebration of Many!

Let me tell you about the joys of a parent’s Christmas.

One week ago was Christmas Eve.  Even though my child is only 8 months old and my niece just 6 weeks, I myself am thirty years old and looked forward to the full Christmas experience, so we did the whole deal just like they were old enough to get it.  Just before suppertime Jack and Ella were dressed in their ridiculously cute matching Christmas outfits and proudly toted to church.  The large Presbyterian sanctuary was crowded with kids at this family service, which made for a lot of rustle and tears – just the right environment for our two babies.  Jack got a little screamy and took a long walk with Grandpa Chip, while Ella timed her explosive poop for during a particularly loud pipe organ trill and captivated the whole aisle behind her.  We sang silent night with lit candles, and then trundled our way out and home, shaking hands and offering up our babies for hugs and kisses.  The kids were bathed and pajama’d, and then Grandpa Chip took out a gorgeous copy of Twas The Night Before Christmas and read it to them.  His big voice boomed and he held the book up to show the pictures (as you do), while Ella alternately snoozed and blinked at the Christmas tree lights and Jack squirmed and screamed in my lap.  Then we trotted our barely cognizant children into the kitchen to select cookies for Santa and some carrots for his reindeer, which we put on a plate next to the note we left for him.

Jack was wound up that evening – he could sense the Christmas excitement radiating off his mother (who is an impatient five year old on Christmas Eve.)  Patrick and I held him in a group hug and sang Silent Night in the dark of his bedroom, and the love, oh the love -.  After he was sound and dreaming of sugar plums, we adults enjoyed a cocktail by the fire and then sat down to a wonderful Christmas Eve meal – I’m thinking this was the night my brother in law served raging hot chili poured over cornbread hunks, just one of many delicious dishes that tightened my belt over the weeklong holiday visit.

In the morning, I woke at about 7:00 and opened my eyes to my sweet little boy.  I had indulged in a couple of early morning hours of bedsharing with wee Jack, so we could wake up all a-cuddle on Christmas.  “Good morning, baby J” I whispered to wake him up, and he smiled before his eyes were even open.  “Merry Christmas, little baby.  Merry first Christmas!”  I kissed his cheeks and his eyes and his fingers and tickled his feet to wake him up, and he smiled and stretched and smiled some more.

After baby breakfast and adult coffee, we all sat together in the living room and checked out Santa’s reply to the children, and oohed and ahhed over the nibbles in the cookies and carrots – magic!  Then we opened our stockings, and I showed Jack all of his new little toys and delighted over my own.  Then we showered and dressed and feasted on a fantastic Christmas brunch, welcoming Patrick’s grandparents and BIL Clif’s parents for the day.  All forty zillion of us sat in the front room and I tried my best to keep Jack entertained during the three solid hours of present opening.  He made out like a bandit, with clothes and toys and a new knitted blue cap with a sailboat on it and a new pirate wall hanging.  Ella, and all of us, were equally spoiled, and while the kids sought relaxation in a nap after the marathon, we adults decided to drink our relaxation by a crackling fire.  (Even though it was 60 degrees outside.)

Most of the whole week is a jumble of memories that I couldn’t assign to one day or another – several walks out to the levee where the dogs ran free; beautifully served gourmet meals that popped buttons; making and icing and eating Christmas cookies; sitting by the fire in the early morning hours with coffees; delighting over the Christmas gift conspiracy secrets we all managed to keep from one another; my brother in law acting more and more like a brother every day; my sister in law and I swapping breastfeeding stories and tips and having “pumping parties” (nursing mothers who pump together stay sane together!); making and eating beaten biscuits with country ham; a very swank and delicious dinner with friends on our last night in town, where we fauxed New Years Eve and drank toasts to one another.

It was a fantastic Christmas, the perfect first Christmas for Jack, a wonderful week.  Tomorrow on my “day off” (such things no longer exist in my adult parental world!), I am going to attempt to integrate all of the new stuff into our 900 square feet of stuffed to the gills house.  And then I will select a short and not too ambitious list of New Years Resolutions.  And possibly take a bike ride?

How was your holiday?