Christmas 2014

On Christmas Eve, Will wore his "ho ho ho" bow tie and his Rudolph/Santa suspenders. And of course the cloth of kings (corduroy, that would be corduroy) for the birth of the King of kings. 

William loves his Little People nativity set. He regularly tries to eat the baby Jesus, which of course I find endearing. In time, my young Catholic . . . in time . . . 

Never mind that he also wants to eat the donkeys and the camel and the wise men and Mary and the angel and Joseph . . . .

Creep!

We went to the 4:30 vigil Mass at St. Clare. We'd never seen the church so packed! Last year we went to the regular 10am Christmas day Mass and we were surprised at how not-packed it was. Well, now it makes sense because all the families with little ones came to this Mass. 

I got a little carried away with the photo shoot and we ended up arriving only 10 minutes before it started. Rookie mistake. We had to park wayyy in the back and I was so worried we wouldn't find a place to sit. Luckily, it worked out in our favor because we were able to find two seats on the aisle (sooo necessary with the screacher creature we call Booger) and we didn't have to entertain him for too long while we waited for Mass to start.

Will and I both admitted to each other that we got a little choked up at certain parts of the Mass. William was his crazy self, but was also just too adorable flirting with all the ladies. We couldn't help but get a little teary thinking about our first Christmas as a family! But the waving after the sign of peace. (He has a thing for the 65 and older crowd, it seems.) Gnawing on his baby Jesus right before communion. And excitedly pointing at the pictures in his little Christmas board book (and also gnawing on the pages, but we choose to ignore certain details, right?) At one point, he started kissing me repeatedly. Over and over, W I D E open-mouth style. I'd never been so overjoyed to have someone's hot breath in my face.

Afterwards we snapped some family photos that just don't seem to do any justice to our church's beauty! Oh well. 

When an old lady asked us, "How old is he? Three months?"

Close.

She must not have kept a mom blog of all her baby's milestones to check back on. Further proof that this blog is totally necessary.

We got home and put William to bed in his special Christmas jammies and then I baked bread pudding while Will wrapped some gifts. Then Will and I watched The Nativity Story, ate half the bread pudding, and called it a night. 

Christmas morning came before the sun thanks to a 6am wakeup call. I guess Booger was just too excited for Christmas presents! . . . 

Wait. No. Just wanted to pull ornaments off the tree . . .

. . .and otherwise not really understand what is happening.

Nevertheless, I had to take pictures with my flash because YES, it was still dark out! There are pros and cons of your baby having a 6:30pm bedtime. Anyway, pretty much all the gifts under the tree were for William, and pretty much all the gifts for William were from grandparents. Santa brought him two gifts that only cost the elves approximately $15 (total) to make. We will get away with it for as long as we can, people.

He helped open the first couple of gifts, which was pretty exciting for us! He got bored pretty quickly, but I was able to capture a couple good photos.

Like this one, which I will treasure forever!

"Santa, you shouldn't have!"

William, amidst all his shiny brand new toys, zeroed in on one item: Chapstick (from my own stocking). He chewed on the unopened Chapstick tube for the rest of the day. He even had a diaper blowout that required a hose down/bath, and you know what? Do you know what he did? He clung to that tube of Chapstick throughout the entire bath. Never put it down. We know what to get him next year . . . 

The rest of the day I proceeded to declare everything a tradition throughout the day. "We are eating home fries! For lunch! New tradition!" "Will is changing a poopy diaper! Tradition!" "We Facetimed 17 different people. Tradition!" You get the idea.

In the evening, we went to the Shepherds for dinner and Grant made the most amazing Christmas dinner. Beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes, and broccoli casserole. I'm salivating just thinking about it. We also brought the other half of the bread pudding, which was a big hit. Mason and Reilly showed us every.single.toy they received from Santa, which was adorable and hilarious. And William just walked around putting his mouth on everything, spreading his Christmas germs cheer. 

It was such a great Christmas! I'm already looking forward to next year.