Christmas

Christmas this year was kind of low key, but just right. Jason's parents stayed with us on Christmas Eve so they opened presents with us Christmas morning. Clara and her cookies for Santa (we almost forgot, whoops). On Christmas morning, things were pretty quiet at our house, even having Jason's parents there. My memories of Christmas morning growing up in a big family, included impatiently waiting in a designated sibling's room until a "reasonable" hour to wake my parents up, impatiently waiting my turn to open a present, impatiently waiting for everyone else to open a present, etc. So I guess the point is: being an only child eliminates having to be patient on Christmas morning. :) I sure hope she enjoyed it because it was her last Christmas as the lone child.

I had no intention of Clara getting everything she asked for. But for her birthday, my mom got her "a music thing that plays music in her room" (aka clock radio) and that left only two items on her wish list: reindeer pj's and her own Christmas tree. I was delighted when I saw some reindeer pj's at Wal Mart (that I purchased, then later purchased a different pair that I found there another time that I liked better). I got those for Clara and told her I let Santa know. I just wanted her to be able to wear them Christmas Eve. Then she got her own tree with decorations from Santa (how could he resist when it was $2.79 on clearance at Michael's?). That morning she came into our room and we kept sleeping. She left then came back in with the tree and Jason let her go back to look at her other stuff. When I realized what was happening, I made him go get her and I jumped (well, not really, I was 9 months pregnant after all) out of bed. Obviously we've never discussed our "rules" for Christmas morning. Clara loved her toothbrushes (since she normally only gets fancy toothbrushes from the dentist, ha ha).

And obviously she had to put a dress-up dress on in order to put make up on.

I finally got my two Christmas wishes that have been on my list for the last two years: a bigger house and a baby (well, close enough). I think we do a good job of making sure we recognize the true meaning of Christmas all throughout December. However, I realized this year that we do a poor job of doing anything on the actual day of Christmas. Something to work on for next year.

We went over to my parent's for brunch and I spent about 80% of the day sitting in my parent's front lawn eating, visiting, watching Rachel sew, enjoying the warm sun and green grass and wondering when I would have a baby. This explains why all my pictures from the day are taken from a chair. I didn't get up and walk around a whole lot.

Rachel and I capped off the night by making a late-night run to Walgreen's for some Castor oil... more on that later (maybe). We both were wondering why there were SO many people at the store on Christmas. The Castor oil was basically an emergency (ha, ha). Perhaps the guy buying a 24-pack considered that an emergency too.

PS I'm well aware that this post doesn't flow very well. It's all over the place, especially the first part. Too bad, I don't have the desire to change it. :)