Christmas 2014

Our entire marriage, we have spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at someone else's house. We are lucky to have a lot of family to be around at Christmas time and have never felt lonely. But, this year we wanted to start some Christmas traditions of our own. Gabe was excited about Santa coming, we had our new baby Calvin and we wanted to do a Christmas with just us. However, Annie's favorite holiday is Christmas and she would be so sad to not go to Arizona and be with the rest of the family and Emily got married this year (YAY!) and so we were going to AZ for her wedding dinner. 

 So, we decided to have 2 Christmases. One in Waco a little early and one in AZ with the rest of the Joneses and Fletchers. We wanted to leave some cookies for Santa and Gabe had been begging to make gingerbread boys. He had seen it on a little Curious George Christmas movie that he had been watching and so we made them on Christmas eve.

Annie was hilarious and made a diaper on hers while Gabe furiously shoved mini M&Ms into his gullet. 

Gabe had a really great time, but we decided that we didn't love the taste of gingerbread and that next year we are just going to make sugar cookies in the shape of gingerbread because they'll taste a lot better. 

A few of our masterpieces.

I had done all of my Christmas shopping before the rush around Thanksgiving and Christmas and Gabe had sent in his letter to Santa about wanting an Emperor Zurg doll when he decided that he also wanted a little Baymax from the movie Big Hero 6 that we saw at Thanksgiving. I had successfully hidden the toy from Gabe when I went to Wal-Mart the day before but then foolishly left the bag of things on my bed and he found it before I got the chance to wrap it. So he got a new toy Christmas Eve (December 19th) and was thrilled about it! He wrote another letter to Santa and left it some of the gingerbread he made and some milk out. He also left the reindeer some reindeer food on our front porch. 

Devin, Cal and I stayed up for a little while and started a new tradition of dancing in the light of the Christmas tree before going to bed. We let Calvin join in just this once since he wasn't tired yet. We danced to Bing Crosby's "You're all I Want for Christmas"

Devin nearly fell asleep before we could get started. 

Then we woke up the next morning and Santa had come!

Gabe had been watching Toy Story 2 a lot around this time and he just knew that if he left his broken Buzz doll in his stocking that Santa would fix him up for him just like the old guy fixes Woody in Toy Story 2. And he was right! Santa did fix his Buzz. :)

Santa left Gabe a note telling him about fixing his Buzz doll, asking him to take good care of his toys and to be a good older brother to Calvin.

Here are a few pictures of our tree and the gifts we got. We picked up a live tree the day after Thanksgiving from Wal-Mart for about $15. It was only 6 feet and the base was too small for the stand we bought and so it wobbled and was a bit of a Charlie Brown tree. But it was fun to have a live tree and to pick it out as a family.

There's a lot of house decoration pictures but even today (6 weeks later) I look back and remember feeling like we didn't have much that night. I was frustrated that our tree was so small but knew we couldn't afford a bigger one, I felt like our decorations were hodge podge. And yet I am so happy for those decorations, for the memory of that first Christmas together. For starting traditions as a little family and I realize just how much we had and how blessed we were. I mostly took a lot of pictures because I wanted to remember that day and to remember that season of our life. We are still poor and that won't change for a while at least while we finish up law school but we are happy. And in our home you feel love.

The next morning we had wrapped Gabe in his room so he would wait for us to go and look at presents. He was still enthralled with his Baymax toy and had slept with him all night.

Gabe opened his stocking to find lots of candy and a few little toys. He even had a new slinky like he wanted! But we quickly learned it wasn't slinky dog like on Toy Story which is what he really wanted. Santa must have gotten that wrong. He was happy about his stocking but kept asking where his Emperor Zurg was! He was so excited and sure that Santa would bring it.

Gabe got a pirate kit in his stocking. He had a little cut on his lip from an incident earlier that week where he found a razor and tried to shave his face like daddy. I think it just made him look like a more legitimate pirate.

He also got a little monkey in his stocking that clapped his cymbals. 

Annie was pretty excited over the new purse she got.

Cal slept through most of the festivities.

I got Devin a Baylor hoodie from a Walgreens in town. I bought an extra large but it was tiny! It fit him but barely. And it didn't even fit me either! It was sad.We tried to exchange it but they didn't have any larger sizes.

I was so impressed with how measured Gabe was with opening presents. He would open a present and then play with it for a good 20-30 minutes until we reminded him he want want to open another one. He didn't just tear through all of them quickly. It made the morning much more enjoyable.

I was trying all morning to take photos on manual with my camera instead of automatic so I didn't get the flash, no background look. But obviously I was only successful sometimes.

Gabe and his slinky.

Not a quality picture, but I just love this boy.

Opening a t ball bat and set.

And trying it out.

Cal woke up finally so we could open a few of his presents. 

Gabe was pretty excited about the Jake and the Neverland Pirates ship he got. His friend Bluma has one and he loves it so mom and dad bought him one of his own.

Me and sweet baby Cal.

Annie, her new iPad case, me and Calvin.

Annie was kind enough to oblige taking a picture of the 4 of us.

The aftermath follows. I have a love hate relationship with the mess after Christmas. Not that I am super clean because lets be real but it seems to symbolize the end of the year. However its a happy mess.

Annie excitedly putting on her new iPad case.

Overall it was such a good Christmas. We got the chance to do a few things we never had before and the bulk of the season was fun. Fun new things to do with Gabe and so fun to have a brand new baby in the house. My Grinch heart might be growing to like Christmas a little bit more.