Christmas Consistency - Part One

Dear Ian,

Technically today is New Year's Day, and here I am working on Christmas posts.  But, I looked back at last year, and I was comforted by the fact that it took me until January to get our Christmas post from 2011 up until January 2012.  At least I am consistent.

You and Pay getting into the spirit

So anyhoo, here we go.  Our Christmas 2012 started off with a fantastic Christmas Eve.  It was a little different that usual; typically we go to Grandma and Grandpa Brooks' house for Christmas Eve stuff, but this year Grandma was a little under the weather, so you got to experience a Davis family Christmas Eve.  Hang on a sec.  Backing up, I need to mention that during the week before Christmas we baked cookies, as per the usual, drove around in our jammies looking at Christmas lights, and we had exclusive showings of classic Christmas movies like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Night Before Christmas.  One of these days I will let you in on my OCD secret:  I actually have a calendar just for our movies.  I don't want to miss one, so I have them carefully written out on a calendar.  One movie per day.  But back to Christmas Eve.  Mommy cooked like a crazy person getting our Christmas yummies like meatballs, sauce and breakfast casserole ready for the holiday.  After a fun day of Christmas music, cooking and goofing off, we headed out to Grandma and Papa's house for traditional meatball subs and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  Yes.  It's tradition...  Uncle Brian, Aunt Maggie and Nole were there, as were Uncle Gary, Aunt Megan, Payton and Taylor.  And of course Grandma and Papa.  Sadly, Papa had a small accident involving Andy the Bull and his knee this year, so he was moving a little slower, but it didn't stop us from having a blast with him and the rest of the family.  I can't remember if you have ever had a meatball sub before, but man on man, did you love it this year!  You ate about half of the bread and all of the meatballs out of your sub.  And then you topped it all of with a tradition Christmas dessert for my side of the family:  pinwheels.  Mmmmmm.  Now I want one!

Nom nom nom

I'm glad to know that our crazy food traditions will live on with you.  After eating a TON of food, we headed back to our house.  We had work to do before Santa came.  First, I know I mentioned in the last post about Otter that he had left you instructions on how to make Reindeer Food.  We had made it earlier in the day, but it was time for us to spread it around in the front yard.  Dressed in your new Christmas jammies, you ran out in the yard and sprinkled your Reindeer Food out in the grass.  You were really into it at first, grabbing handfuls and tossing it around.  But then I guess you realized we had more to do, Santa was coming, or you just got bored, because your last distribution of Reindeer food was an unceremonious dump of it out of the bag.  It made me laugh.  Here are some pictures of the Reindeer Fooding:

Looking for Santa

Getting a good coverage of Reindeer Food in the yard

Meh, time to just dump it.

Cookies for Santa!

With the Reindeer Food spread out in the yard, it was time to get the rest of our Christmas Eve stuff done.  Next to do was the important job of setting out cookies for Santa.  You chose a couple of our special Christmas cookies and we poured him some milk in a Christmas cup.  (FYI:  Santa must have really liked our cookies, because they were all gone except for one bit, and the milk was totally gone.  Good choice, little buddy!)  

Then you, Daddy and I settled in on the couch to read the very special book, Twas The Night Before Christmas.  This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas.  It makes my heart so happy to have our whole little family snuggled together on such a fun and festive night, reading a book that my Daddy used to read to me on Christmas Eve.  Sigh.  I am such a lucky wife and Mommy.  At the conclusion of our book, then it was off to bed!  You were actually in a hurry to get to sleep!  Too bad Christmas Eve is only once a year.  

Reading with Daddy. 

 I'm going to stop this post here, just like we did on Christmas Eve, and pick back up on Part 2 where I write about all of the fun you had on Christmas morning.  Build the suspense and all.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Love,

Mommy