First Christmas

Time for recovery! We just got home today from a 5-day holiday visiting spree. We began the trip at Craig's parents' in Grand Rapids, where we celebrated Christmas Eve. The next day, we drove down to Chicago to celebrate the holiday with my parents and sister. We stayed with my family for the next few days, including a jaunt 2 hours north to Milwaukee to visit my dad's side of the family.



So many wonderful memories of Elizabeth's first Christmas. On Craig's side, Elizabeth has 3 older cousins (ages 5, 4, and 1.5), so the holiday for this group was a chaotic blur of flung wrapping paper, laughter, some crankiness, and of course lots and lots of toys. Elizabeth held her own so well with the excited older kids. She mostly just crawled around the living room taking in the action. Her oldest cousins just couldn't wait for E. to attempt to open her gifts, so "helped" her by ripping off the paper themselves, but E. didn't seem to notice the paper anyway.
With my side, she's the only grandchild so was the center of attention. Again, though, the gift opening did not really capture her attention--in this case, because it was upstaged by Elizabeth's discovery of my parents' staircase. She's never been on our stairs, but there they stood, right by the living room where we were opening gifts. I let her scale that mountain to see how she'd do, and she sped up those stairs (with me close behind), met by our cheers. Goofy little monkey!

The next few days were jam-packed with visits. I had to shed my uptightness and go with the flow with wonky naptimes and late bedtimes, but Elizabeth (and I) went with the flow pretty well. We spent the 26th with my dad's side of the family, a pretty large group which included my cousin's son Brayden who is 3 months younger than Elizabeth. The two babies stole the show the entire evening, and shared some good playtime (although Elizabeth did yank toys from Brayden on more than one occasion). It was fun to share parent stories with my cousin and his wife. It really hit me that I'm getting old. I have been to so many Christmas celebrations in that very house with that very group of people, for years and years, and now that I have my own daughter I noticed a distinct generational shift. My grandparents have passed away, so now my parents and aunts and uncles have become a new generation, and Elizabeth and Brayden have replaced the place my cousins and I have held for so many years as "the kids." It's times like these that floor me--I am an ADULT!!
The last two days of our trip were filled with visits to my high school friends and their kids. We all have kids more or less around the same age, and there are 7 kids among us now, so it gives us a perfect reason to get together. I feel so blessed that my dear friends and I have managed to reconnect so often in the 12 years since we dispersed after high school...and the days of bowling and bars has morphed into playdates at our houses or in the play area at the mall. Yikes!

This is the blueprint for what my daughter's earliest Christmas memories will be. It touches me when I think of how similar our holidays were to what I experienced growing up. Like Elizabeth, I grew up in a family in which most of our relatives lived out of town, so every year we made an extended trip packed with visits. The highlight for me was always the Christmas free-for-all with my cousins; the worst was living rooms of my parents' friends, where I entertained myself while they talked about boring adult stuff.

But this will be distinctly Elizabeth's story. Someday she will look back on the photos from Christmas 2010, her first, in complete wonder.

PICTURED ABOVE: Elizabeth and her cousins; with Aunt Katy; two daddies--Craig and Elizabeth with my cousin Jeff and his son Brayden.

Santa Claus is coming to town...but he needs a coffee break

Clearly Elizabeth knows nothing about Santa Claus. The only character she vaguely seems to recognize is Elmo, but that's another story for another time. But, as it's Elizabeth's first Christmas and I tend to get hokey at times, I entered the holiday season bound and determined to get that first picture of her on Santa's lap!

I talked to a couple friends at work and they suggested the local Bass Pro Shop, where apparently the line is short and the photos are free. Bass Pro Shop is a half hour away from us, but last weekend we were up at our friends' Hanukkah party (I thought Elizabeth's first dreidel game followed by her first Santa visit would be pretty funny), which was in the neighborhood of the store--perfect! I dressed E. in one of her 3 Christmas dresses (thank you to the Grandmas!) and off we went.

Naturally, she fell asleep on the way to the store. Bass Pro Shop is part of a huge outlet mall, so I did shark circles through the parking lot for almost 20 minutes until I found a parking space. (At a mall on a Saturday afternoon in December...that was my first mistake.) I welcomed the nuisance, though, since it would give E. more time to nap. So I sat in the car and decided to wait out the nap...45 minutes and lots of NPR on the radio later, she finally stirred. I nursed her in the front seat, bundled her up, and walked us purposefully into the store. I was excited to see how this would turn out.

I walked towards the little Santa village in the store, only to find out that Santa was on break and would return at 5. It was 3:45. I was pretty bummed, more so over the huge amount of time I had just wasted. Oh well.

The following Friday, I was unexpectedly home from work in the afternoon because Elizabeth had a stomach bug, having had her first puking experience the night before, poor baby. She seemed to be feeling like her old self, though, with no fever, so on an impulse I decided to take us to the mall to attempt to see Santa. (A different mall in a completely different part of town.) I needed to go to Penneys anyway, and I figured we were just close enough to school dismissal time that it wouldn't be too busy yet.

Again, my daughter fell asleep in the car. This time I was prepared with a couple magazines, and she still slept about 45 minutes. I loaded her into the stroller and off we went. I bought a pretzel because I was starving and gave her a chunk to nibble on. Okay, ready!

There was a pleasantly short line in front of the Chronicles of Narnia-themed snowy village. Yay! An older gentleman (thankfully not dressed like an elf) was patrolling the line, telling us that Santa would be leaving at 5 for an hour-long break. It was 4:30. The man told us at the end of the line that we'd probably not get in, but might as well wait just in case. The earnest dad in front of me, surrounded by several gleeful kids, pleaded to the man "But we came all the way from Minnesota to see him." Okay, seriously?

I tried to remain patient, enjoying the sight of my daughter in her adorable plaid jumper (that was mine!) and red tights as she gazed wide-eyed at her surroundings. She played with her Elmo doll and I managed to feed her a jar of baby food as we waited. I chatted with the woman behind me who stood with her 7-year-old son.

5:00. The gentleman reappeared and roped off the line right in front of the family in front of me. A maintenance guy appeared and started to vacuum the Narnia village. I'm generally not an assertive person in the least, but darn it, I was here and my daughter was awake and happy and adorable! I asked the gentleman if we could get just a QUICK picture with Santa, seeing as Elizabeth was the only child in the entire line not old enough to want to talk to him and give him her Christmas list. He told me to ask the manager. I hauled Elizabeth across the village to plead my case with the manager, again posing my reasonable argument (much more reasonable than coming from Minnesota, which clearly doesn't have any Santas in their malls). "If I let you in, I'd have to let everyone in," he said apologetically. Okay. Fine.

The trip wasn't a total wash because I got to Penneys to order my family room blinds, but darn it, my daughter is going to see Santa and he's NOT going to take any more breaks!! A friend tipped me about a local hardware store. I think that's my next bet. Besides, the mall pictures cost $20!


Above: Third time is a charm! Elizabeth and Santa at Bass Pro Shop on December 18. A 2 minute wait and no tears! Perfect!!!