Christmas 2011

Our family had a great Christmas. Like last year, we had a little get-together on Christmas Eve (my goal is to keep this up because we always used to do it in our family growing up). And my sister came again this year to spend the holiday with us. We got up early on Christmas morning, had a less than yummy breakfast (I tried a new breakfast casserole recipe that I will never make again), and opened our stockings and presents. I don't have a too many pictures because we used the video camera a lot but also because I tried to put down the camera some and enjoy the day. Grant got up later than the rest of us so the three of us opened our presents and then Grant did his.

After Santa came - the big red bag is Grant's basketball set. I'm not
a fan of unwrapped presents "under" the tree so Husband and I
compromised. He put it together so Grant could play with it
immediately and I got to throw a big bag over it and call it wrapped.

It was the best one I could get of Grant by
the tree. He wasn't much for smiling
at that point.

My sister has been "threatening" to get Grant a drum set. And, in
cahoots with my mother-in-law, she did. However, it's pretty adorable
and has yet to become annoying.

Husband likes it too.

Grant loves his new little chair

What I wish I'd gotten a picture of is my sister opening one of her presents. I'd been teasing her about it for almost two months and she wanted so bad to know what it was. Right before she opened it I told her to not get excited about the box because it wasn't what was actually in there. So she starts to open it and she pays no attention to it being a box for a Kindle knowing that I have one. So she starts to look for the box opening and I said "No, I'm just kidding. That's what's really in there." She flipped out! I guess she wanted one more than I thought she would :)

After all that we went to my Mother-in-law's for Christmas lunch. (FYI: the camera got left behind - by accident - so all these were taken with my phone. Sorry for the quality but there's no amount of editing that would help.)

Grant's cute Santa plate!

Grant and Robbie. Grant loves how little she is!

More presents!

After lunch, present opening, dessert, and talking about how we shouldn't have eaten as much as we did we headed back home so Grant would take a nap. He seemed to be refusing to nap at Grandma's. I think he just didn't want to miss anything. After a good nap - which meant the three of us could rest too - Grant got up to play some more with all his new toys.

Along with the new toys (and the clothes that went
unnoticed) Santa brought some fun new books!

And a pre-bath escape that led to...

A Lego explosion.

It probably doesn't look like it, but we tried to go small with Christmas. Everyone gets excited about presents - and I am no exception - but I really want to raise Grant to care less about the presents and more about spending time with family at Christmas. To know that it's not about getting everything you put on your list but about feeling fortunate for what you have and who you get to spend it with.

We had a really great Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and I hope everyone reading this did too!