Merry Christmas!

We had a great time celebrating Christmas with family and friends this year!

The festivities started on my birthday. I had to go to the DMV to renew my license, which was not high on my list of “yay, my birthday!” activities. But I was in and out in less than 10 minutes, so I consider that a win. My parents and brother arrived in the afternoon and we enjoyed a delicious dinner of ribs and potatoes. My dad makes the best ribs, hands down. Such a treat! Dessert was cheesecake, as it has been for just about every year I can remember. Some traditions are not to be trifled with :) Mike, my dad and J.T. went to see Star Wars after dinner, which they all enjoyed. Mom and I fell asleep on the couch around 8:30. Such party animals!

Christmas Eve we all slept in – even L.J.! We opened family presents in the morning, enjoyed a nice breakfast and overall had a relaxing, lazy day.

L.J. was so excited to open a box with Peppa books and a stuffed Peppa and George! He could hardly get the words out when he saw them, happily announcing, “It’s a Peppa the Pig!!! And…and…a Peppa the George!!!”

His big present from Nana and Poppa was a train (/lego/multipurpose) table for the playroom! He, Poppa and Uncle J.T. built it together, and then had a fun time racing cars down a ramp made from the packaging. 

(It was a collaborative gift; Grandma got him tracks and trains to go with his new table. Such a great idea!)

Late in the afternoon, my Catholic family decided to try out a Jewish tradition and met up with my other brother and his wife for Chinese. Although a big departure from our typical Christmas Eve spread – which both my mom and I said “Not happening!” to cooking – it was quite tasty. Afterwards, Mike politely but firmly requested that we go back to a more traditional meal next year.

The Greenville crew headed home after dinner (my poor mom had bronchitis), so that left Mike and I to enjoy a quiet Christmas Eve together. L.J. zonked out pretty quickly and early, so we watched a movie together.

Christmas morning L.J. slept in until 7:15! Mike and I woke up a bit before that, and having a little time to stretch out lazily in bed was a true luxury. Once L.J. was up, it was time to open Santa gifts! He was a little confused about the present delivery process and wanted to know where Santa was and why he wasn’t in the living room waiting for us.

After lunch we headed up to Mike’s mom’s to enjoy Christmas with the Holmes family. By this point L.J. was a pro at opening gifts and started asking for ‘more presents’ when he ran out of things to open. To a three year old, tearing off the paper to discover what’s inside is as exciting as the gift itself!

Yes, that is sweat on L.J.’s head. My van gifted me with broken air conditioning (again…) right before Mother Nature gifted us with 75 degree temps on Christmas. I was not impressed on either count. Even Florida-loving Mike mentioned that Christmas should be cold.

(And, I suppose I need to clarify. He was sweating because he was napping with Baba shoved beside his head. We had the fan on in the car; Mike said it was quite comfortable. I can’t comment because I’m super pregnant and I feel like I’m going to die of heat stroke half the time anyway.)

His favorite gift – which, again, must be a three-year-old thing – was a package of Thomas the Train underwear. He’s big into underwear these days; we really need to stop putting off potty training. Since we said no to layering them over his clothes, he decorated Grandma’s stuffed tree instead.

We rounded out our Christmas festivities with two more social gatherings, neither of which I documented with photos. On Saturday we went to a barbecue at the Bishops, who are the parents of Mike’s good friend and BBQ master, Jason. He smoked a 28 lb brisket for the occasion, which was quite delicious. We also were treated to his wife’s award-winning pecan pie cheesecake. Jason’s brother and family were there, including twins about L.J.’s age. He was delighted to have playmates and enjoyed playing with some of their Christmas toys. (The twins were slightly less enthusiastic about the toy sharing…) It was an enjoyable afternoon, though goes without saying that I was totally exhausted by the time we left.

Sunday we met up with our friends Ruth and Todd for brunch at a nearby restaurant. L.J. was so well behaved and gave us plenty of time to catch up and enjoy our friends’ company! It was great to see them and a nice way to wrap up several days of holiday fun.