Christmas 2013

Santa went a little crazy this year. 

Actually, that's crap.

I didn't let Santa take credit for as much as I maybe should have. So we went a little crazy and I let Santa take credit for the stuff Grant asked him for and then some other stuff that I thought Grant would go crazy over. But it turns out...he didn't care what was from Santa. I was a little neurotic over what was "from Santa" and what was from us. But in the end it didn't matter. And I know for next year (although that older gets it may matter?). What matters is that Grant had a great Christmas and we had so much fun watching him open his presents.

Christmas Eve - which was low key and only the 3 of us this year - ended with Grant putting out cookies & milk for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer.

Santa really likes those sugar cookies from the grocery store
that have the mountain of frosting on top.

Then we stayed up for a bit after Grant went to bed so I could wrap some last minute stuff and put out all his presents (and Husband stayed on the look out for Grant). I like to leave Grant's presents hidden so when he gets up he's really surprised.

Santa wraps the presents that come to our house. Even if it
means a giant gift bag...I don't like unwrapped presents under the tree.

Husband was an absolute child on Christmas morning, practically jumping on the bed to wake me up. Christmas music was already on in the living room and he was working on getting Grant up too. He managed that, showed him that Santa enjoyed his heavily frosted cookies and presumably fed the reindeer their snack since most of the plate contents were gone (all this while I made some very necessary coffee) then it was stocking time. 

We always do stockings first and Grant's was pretty well loaded.

Everything from undies to gold doubloons!

Presents were very exciting. We tried not to make it go too fast. That wasn't all that difficult because Grant loved everything he opened and wanted to open it to play with immediately (except clothes...he's rarely excited about clothes but that's ok because I am).

Yay! Skipper from Planes...which he loves and still hadn't seen.

Batman glasses!

New board game!

For the boy who pretends to "Hulk Smash" everything

New hockey sticks and gloves!

That needed to be tested...

Immediately.

So excited!...About?

Planes! Good job, Santa.

 What Grant wanted most from Santa was "big Buzz Lightyear". He's obsessed with Toy Story right now and loves him some Buzz. He had spied a Buzz toy at the Disney Store months ago and couldn't get it out of his head. And when he opened he started yelling "What's this? No way! NO WAY! IT'S BIG BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!" It was so funny to watch him and great to see him love it so much.

We asked him if he loved it. This is him telling Daddy "YEAH!"

Captain America gear!

Grant got lots of stuff. More than I'm really willing to keep posting pictures of...because do you really need to see endless pictures of him opening presents? No, you don't.

The last thing he had to open was the one from Santa with the giant bag over it. And after running over and touching 400 times and asking repeatedly what it was, he finally said "Is it a bicycle? Is it??"

It was, in fact, a bicycle.

It was a really great Christmas morning.

We go to my mother-in-law's house for Christmas lunch after we do our morning stuff. Grant never eats well on Holidays because Gramma's house means playtime and who has time to eat if you're going to miss out on playtime? He was ready to skip lunch and just open presents. So being the mean Mama that I am, I told him he can't open his presents unless he ate some lunch. For a little while, I really thought I'd have to make good on my threat...but in the end it mostly worked.

Grant likes to help pass out the presents

Getting sleepy but would never admit it!

Another game to play!

An Iron Man shooter thing...that I think could take the
head off a cat or small rodent.

Books!

Ooooh...a transformer!

As you can see, he had an insanely great day. More new things to play with! And did we ever. I was off the week of Christmas and the day after wore us both out we played so much! And then Grant took a 3.5 hour nap! He hasn't napped that long in ages.

It was a little tough for me to find my Christmas spirit this year. Some years have been harder than others without my parents and this was just one of those years. I wasn't as excited about decorating the house or the tree but I got there slowly. It didn't help that it was too warm (hot, even) for December and it never feels like Christmas unless it's cold! But whatever my reasons, come Christmas morning, I was really excited to see Grant open his gifts and have so much fun. It was a really great day :)