Christmas 2012

I'm just going to come out and say it.  This was, hands down, my favorite Christmas ever.

As much as we love going up to the Bay Area to spend the holidays at my parents' house, it was so nice not to have to make that drive this year. We are so incredibly grateful to my parents and my sister and her husband for trekking down to San Diego instead.  This was our first year hosting Christmas, and it couldn't have happened on a better year.  The kids are at a perfect age to be really into it.  They were so excited the entire Advent season.  It was fun to create new holiday traditions, as well as continue old ones

My ambivalence toward Christmas has been well-documented, but I've always loved sending and receiving Christmas cards.  Another tradition that we've established over the years is to go to our church's Christmas festival.  The kids love participating in the "California snowball fight."  My East Coast friends are appalled that balled-up pieces of paper stand in for real snowballs, but I love that Jack can wear shorts during this kind of snowball fight.

We got our first proper tree last year, and it was fun to set it up and have the kids help decorate it again this year.  Our ornaments are mostly a hodgepodge of gifts, handmade ones from Jack's preschool, and hand-me-downs from friends. Even our tree-topper is an angel that Jack made out of a paper plate.  I was thrilled when my parents brought down a box of old ornaments that have been hanging on our tree since my childhood.  I picked out a few classics, and it's so fun to see old favorites on a new tree.

One tradition I've stolen from a friend is to let the kids pick out one ornament a year from the store. I'll put their name and the year on it and then give them all their ornaments when they are adults with their own family tree.

Another tradition I started is having an Advent calendar.  I had never heard of such a thing until I was an adult and started going to our church.  The one that I got allows the kids to open one door on each of the 24 days in December before Christmas and pull out a magnetic figure to stick on a Nativity scene.  It was such a fun way to keep the kids excited about Christmas coming.  Of course, our Advent calendar featured a camel, and it was quite frequently posed so that the kids could pretend it was peeing on one of the wise men's face.  Ahhh, potty humor on a depiction of the birth of Christ.  Robert Maplethorpe ain't got nothing on my children.

We also took our traditional picture with Santa.  Violet has never been a fan of costumed characters, and Santa is no exception.  Her first Christmas, she actually cried.  Last year, she didn't cry, but she wouldn't smile.  This year, I promised that she would get a candy cane if she took a nice picture.  I was so happily surprised when it worked, and we got a beautiful photo with both kids with dazzling smiles.

Violet, incidentally, was wearing a Christmas dress that Jack chose for her at Target.  It was so fun being at the store with him.  He kept picking dresses for her.  I told him he could only choose one.

"I can't decide!" he said.  "They're all so cute!"

In the end, he chose an adorable blue one that has the added benefit of being versatile enough to not be simply a Christmas dress.

This was also the first year that Tom hung lights on the house, at Jack's insistence.  Jack was disappointed that we didn't have more than a basic string of lights spanning the eaves over our garage.  He really wanted the lights that look like icicles, but they were too expensive.  We told him we'd try to find a better deal next year.

We were also happy this year to host my cousin Daryl during his first Christmas in the United States.  The kids had such a good time with all the family in town.  Jack received a bunch of Star Wars Lego sets, in addition to lots of books and other toys.  He was so thrilled and kept thanking us throughout the day and telling us how much he loved his presents.  Violet also got a lot of books and toys.  We gave her a My Little Pony castle that my sister had when we were kids, but I think her (current) favorite present is a baby doll that her Aunt Ellen gave her.  She's named him Charlie, and he joins Baby Clara, Baby Bobby, and Sweetpea in her family of babies.  Today, she was giving him some numi num.

After all the presents were opened, we sat down for our Christmas meal and capped it off with an amazing red velvet birthday cake in my sister's honor.

It was just a perfect Christmas.