The Best Christmas I Have Ever Had

I know this is a bit late (it took me awhile to remember to upload my pictures), but I thought I would take a minute and talk about Christmas.

I blogged ASAP about Thanksgiving because I was frustrated and needed to vent (as you will notice, there are no pictures in my Thanksgiving blog).

I mentioned in that Thanksgiving blog that I thought that the holidays had good years and hard years due to nap schedules. I take it back. Despite Peter's nap schedule, this was the best Christmas I have ever had. It was busy, yes, but it was the best.

One of my mom's traditions was that she would always surprise us with a stuffed animal on Christmas Eve morning. It was fun to have a new toy to play with all day before the toys we got on Christmas morning. It always made the day magical for us. It built up the anticipation and we had so much fun playing together with our new stuffed animals. So, I got a stuffed animal for Peter too. He was really cute with it and seemed to enjoy it a lot. He hadn't had a new toy in quite awhile, so I think it was a fun surprise for him.





On Christmas Eve, we spent the evening with the Washburn family. We had a lovely and super easy dinner (consisting of a Honey Baked ham and turkey breast, and store-prepared goodies such as crackers and cheeseball, shrimp and cocktail sauce, fruit, veggies, etc.). Then we read the Christmas story in Luke 2 and some Christmas-themed stories that Mike and Debra have saved over the years. Peter was super hard to contain during that time (he doesn't like to sit still and just listen to stories--especially when they don't have pictures). He's definitely a busy boy. We also played some Christmas songs on their chime set.



I have decided that babies are the greatest thing ever when you're tired and want to bow out gracefully and early. We left the Washburn family gathering (as did everyone else who had kids) at about 8 p.m. so that we could put Peter to bed. We put Peter in his new pair of Christmas pajamas (also a tradition I had growing up--we would always get a new pair of pajamas to wear to sleep on Christmas Eve).

I was wondering how we would deal with presents the next day with Peter's sleep schedule, but it worked perfectly.

Peter woke up early--at 7 a.m. on Christmas morning. That gave us enough time to show him his present from Santa. I don't think I have ever seen him so excited when he saw a new toy before. Santa doesn't wrap his present at our house. The only presents that get wrapped are the ones that mom and dad give. But we covered the present from Santa with a blanket so Peter could pull it off. He was so excited. We got the cutest video of him with it. It just made my morning. THIS is what holidays are all about. I felt so much love for him. It made me so happy to give him a present that gave him so much joy. I would do anything for that little guy.











I am in the Primary Presidency and I had the blessing of doing Sharing Time this month. In my Christmas Sharing Time, I taught about the gifts that Jesus gives to us and the gifts that we can give back to Him. I tell you, Peter is the greatest gift the Lord could ever have given to me and I am going to have a doozy of a time finding a gift to give back to Him that even comes close.

So, Christmas morning was very nice. We had enough time to play with Peter's toy from Santa before heading off to my Dad's house to spend Christmas morning. We got there at 8:30 a.m. as planned and scheduled and everyone came downstairs to join us by 9 a.m. (yeah, schedules don't always work out). We opened gifts there and had a lovely time. Peter didn't really grasp the idea of opening presents, but once they were open, he definitely enjoyed them. He got many adorable toys. His two favorites from Grandma and Grandpa Mackay would have to be the Sesame Street toy (it has doors and you push a button and Sesame Street characters come out of the doors and sing their signature songs) and a dump truck riding toy (that wasn't his favorite then because it was in a box and it definitely required some assembly). In fact, he loved his Sesame Street toy so much that we had to set it on top of the dump truck toy in order to get him to go over and open it.





We left at 10 a.m. so that Peter could take a nap. We were easily able to transport our sleeping little guy from his car seat to his crib.

Jeremiah and I opened our gifts to each other while Peter slept. Pete woke up around noon and we fed him lunch and then went upstairs to exchange gifts with Mimi and Papa Washburn. They were still getting ready, so there was some delay before we were able to exchange gifts. However, we had a lovely time with them as well.

In addition to other things, we gave each set of grandparents some pictures of Peter. What a cutie!



It did take a little longer than expected with Mimi and Papa, so we had less time than expected for Peter to open his gifts from us. We only had about 15 minutes and it was pretty rushed. Plus, by that time, Peter was getting a little overwhelmed with all of the new presents and toys. So, after 15 minutes of opening our gifts and playing with them very hurriedly, Peter was off for his second nap.







Jeremiah and I simply relaxed while Peter slept. Soooo nice.

When Peter woke up, we gave him a bath (where he got to play with his new cool bath toys from Grandma and Grandpa Mackay) and got him dressed and headed off to my Mom's house to celebrate Christmas Day (evening). We celebrated with some fun finger foods and then opened more presents. By this point, Peter was OVER new toys. They weren't very exciting to him anymore. He was really overwhelmed. But no worries, in the following weeks, he has come to love those toys just as much as the others.

Our evening at my Mom's house turned out to be very quiet and relaxing. My brothers and sisters went to a movie with my Dad (evening movies are definitely a thing of the past for me--unless we have a babysitter, it just doesn't happen! I haven't seen a movie in the theaters since May. I saw "Up" and that was the first movie I had seen in the theaters since I was eight months pregnant!). I believe that Niel's sons had left to spend time with other family. We Skyped my brother, Nephi, and sister-in-law, Shandie (as well as their adorable little girl, Maddie), in Texas to wish them a Merry Christmas.

But after everyone cleared out, it was just me, Jeremiah, Peter, Mom, and Niel. We spent the evening playing in my Mom's basement. Peter charmed us all by waving goodbye (for the first time other than to me or Jeremiah) to Grandpa Niel as he crawled up the stairs. It was so cute. :)





Then, we drove home and put Peter to bed and watched a movie while we cuddled together on the couch.

Christmas is just going to get better. Who knows? Maybe we'll have another little one to share Christmas with in 2010! And no, I'm not pregnant. That wasn't an announcement...just a possibility!