Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Christmas Eve 2009

In reverse chronological order, because that is how they uploaded. This is how we set up the presents for the boys. Each one had his own little seat; Will's was a chair we already had, while Andrew's was his new booster seat. He needed one anyway, but I had countered his pleas by telling him he was not big enough yet. And I bought the slightly more expensive one that featured little reading lights. I made them those little capes, which is an incident worthy of its own blog post someday. The kids wear them just about every day, to my immense gratification.
This is how the room looked when we went to bed that night at 1 am or so, after wrapping presents and sewing capes (Brigham rethreading the machine I can barely operate) and watching Its A Wonderful Life. I realized that Brigham and I differed with regard to the importance of Santa. It did not even occur to me to try to provide evidence of the man or give him any credit for the gifts we had selected. But Brigham saw that there was magic in Santa for the boys and he worried about whether the boys would be troubled or alerted to suspicion by Santa using the same wrapping paper we did. He resolved it by telling the kids that we left out paper for Santa to use.
Will had fallen asleep in the car and the way home from our DC adventures, so he was unable to open a Christmas Eve present. I chose a transformer for Andrew to open. He was happy with it at first.
I probably should have just taken a photo to document the huge tantrum he threw when the toy proved impossible even for Brigham to transform without heavy reliance upon the directions.

9 comments:

Monica Rich said...

So great. We do the wrapping-paper-for-Santa thing, too.

I can't believe you made those capes and am looking forward to the blog post about it.

Your house is beautiful, BTW.

Michelle said...

I love all the pictures...your house looks magical! What a fun little night. You look so great!

Holly said...

Alexandra! (Now that I told you I read your blog I can comment.) I love the capes. I'm wanting to make one for Preston, so I'll be asking you about that soon! Maybe you can help me.

Unknown said...

I also want to know how to make those capes! They are amazing! Your house looks beautiful by the way. Did you paint it or was it already that color? It looks especially homey with the Christmas tree and decorations.

Ashley said...

1. You are so cute and skinny while pregnant. Not cool.

2. Your house is so cozy and nice. I want to come over.

3. The capes are very impressive! You are a good mom. I'm glad they love them.

Tiana said...

Ches saw me reading this and loved those batman capes. It's funny, because I was trying to avoid using the same wrapping paper that Santa would use, but by the end we were running out, so it was inevitable. Sure enough Ches pointed out that Santa had the same wrapping paper that we did. He just concluded that Santa must shop at the same store we do. You look fabulous, by the way!

Jenny said...

Your home looks so cozy! I can't wait to hear more about those fabulous capes!

Momo Cannon said...

It looked like a magical Christmas! I used to obsess about the wrapping paper - I am sure Brigham got it from me. The capes turned out great -- I want to hear the whole story! Love you all, Momo

Tat said...

You are truly "cute and skinny" while pregnant. When I was pregnant with Alexander, someone asked me, pointing to my belly, how many I had "in there." No joke.