A Merry Christmas

My great-grandma began a tradition of making matching stockings for each of her grandchildren. My mom then made them for us, and for our first Christmas as newlyweds I made one for Scott. They are kind of a lot of work! Thankfully my mom considers it a grandma's job and made stockings for each of the boys.

This was our very first Christmas celebrated as just our little family. We sure missed our loved ones spread across the country but enjoyed starting a few new Larson Family traditions.

We started a Christmas morning tradition of eating a picnic breakfast upstairs. The boys didn't sense the urgency and enjoyed an unusually leisurely breakfast, taking turns rocking themselves over in their boosters and laughing over spilled milk. We finally just dragged them over to the staircase to see what they were missing downstairs.

Ian starting to realize that something had happened downstairs...

Joseph made a bee-line for his stocking and plucked out a dish scrubber. For him, that is about where Christmas began and ended, and he was entirely satisfied. How on earth did Grandma know? Bizarre. Here he is saying "Whoa...!"

Ian was delighted to finally open a present, after it had been forbidden for the last several weeks (especially the package of marshmallow roasting spears for Scott that Ian Would. Not. Leave Alone.)This was a bubble mower that his Daddy picked out. Ian dragged that thing all over the house in the box until we finally opened it.

Driving a "Life is a Highway" car all over the rug. Is any little boy not obsessed with Lightning McQueen?

Joseph was finally coerced into opening a present. Ian on the other hand began opening present willy-nilly until we finally reigned him in and explained that he could only open presents with I-A-N on them.

The aftermath.

We learned some lessons this year:

* It feels like Christmas as soon as you eat a Hillshire Farms sausage on crackers.

* It feels like a really good Christmas when your wonderful husband makes sure you have See's Candies all the way out in Houston.

*If you tell Ian not to divulge what people are getting for Christmas, he will say "Hey Mom! Mom! Shhh.... a pillow.... sshhh... and shoes...it's a 'stuprize' on Christmas Day, Mommy". True to his word, he gave me a pillow and shoes.

*If you are used to celebrating Christmas Eve dinner with lots of family and friends who usually contribute side dishes, but you decide to have Christmas dinner just as a family, you may sit down to dinner before you realize that you have only prepared a ham and rolls and that no sides have materialized.

*If you decide to buy ingredients for Christmas Day dinner at the very last second and you decide to bring along two toddlers with you, you may forget a few ingredients. And they might possibly be vital ones, such as the tostada shells and chicken. So then you just eat leftover ham on leftover rolls and your good friends forgive you.

*If you don't buy enough scotch tape, your presents will end up looking like this beauty, wrapped in blue painters tape:

Scott's presents for me needed no tags -- the blue painters tape was a giveaway.

And lastly, if you have such a relaxing, lazy, holiday week that you can take two naps in one day, you may end up so rested you can't sleep at night so you get up at midnight to blog about the holidays. Now that is a sign of a good vacation!

Hope you had a Merry Christmas too!