Christmas 2009, a little late

We had a very nice Christmas, actually the whole season was festive, despite my often cranky attitude, I tried to snap out of it and remember how very lucky we are as a family. I also tried to focus on the fact that Lana is at that perfect age to enjoy Christmas and all of the magical things that the season brings. Lana really enjoyed looking at all of our neighbors' lights and we always would try to find "crazy lights" which means the houses that were lit up the most. We even put up some lights after much cursing from Bill. But he did a great job and we realized that putting lights on a house requires a lot more lights and extension cords that putting lights up in an apartment, so I bought some more lights the day after Christmas at 50% off for next year. Hopefully our house won't be the most sparse on the street next year. We will get there. Sometimes I am still amazed that we are homeowners, grownups, even parents! Wasn't it like a minute ago we were young, single people living in the big city? On December 11, Bill and I celebrated, well actually we just remembered that 10 years ago was our first date, a wonderful and special first date. I can't believe its been a decade. That could actually be a whole separate post and now I am totally off-topic about Christmas.

We visited Santa twice this year. Lana was mystified! She did really great and told him what she wanted: "Hello Kitty stickers and a mini play kitchen that I can take anywhere". She wanted to know why the one Santa had glasses and the other one didn't. Contacts, I told her.

Lana loved singing the songs this holiday season. Her go-to favorites were Deck the Halls, Jingle Bells, We Wish You a Merry Christmas and The Twelve Days of Christmas. I have a feeling we will be singing these the whole year through. She loves to sing and I think she can carry a tune pretty well for a 3.5 year old. My favorite part of Christmas Day was when after dinner, Lana skipped around the dinner table singing each of these Christmas tunes (with everyone joining in). We were all laughing, smiling and singing, even my in-laws who don't know the words. They just did the la-la-las to each of the songs. It was a great moment.

Christmas Eve we went to a friend's house who holds an open house party every year. We stopped by, had some snacks and socialized for about an hour before we took off for Chinese Hot Pot at my in-laws'. My mom also joined us and it was fun. We beat it home kind of early so we could get Lana in bed at a decent hour. Lacey's sleep has been all over the place, so I can't exactly stay up till midnight these days. We put out cookies and a carrot for Santa and the reindeer and we wrote a quick note to Santa. Lana was so excited that Christmas was FINALLY here!

In the morning, Lana woke up and said, "Baba, is it really Christmas?" Then there were tears--yes, tears. We hung a stocking in her room in addition to the stocking downstairs on the mantle. (The one in her room is from last year. I bought new matching stockings for the 4 of us this year to hang on the fireplace in our living room). So I told her that she should check the stocking in her room b/c it looked like there may be stuff in there. Before I could take 2 steps, she ran over to it and pulled it down, along with the heavy stocking holder that hit her square in the cheek, causing a lovely abrasion, complete with blood. She quickly recovered when she saw what was in her stocking. We made it down stairs and we quickly opened gifts. Lana had a blast looking for her name on the tags and ripping everything open, of course. I even managed to surprise Bill with a gift this year, which is a feat, since I am the world's worst liar and secret-keeper. After we cleaned up the mess, my mom and in-laws came over for a wonderful, casual meal. It was so nice not to have to travel or even get dressed and get over to someone else's house. Lana could just play with her new toys, show her grandparents all her stuff, while Bill and I prepared the meal. We called other family members back east to wish them a Merry Christmas, but it was so nice to have our immediate family all together. Of course this year was the first year without my dad and boy, did I feel his absence. Not his physical absence, b/c we have never spent the actual holiday together after my parents got divorced and I moved away, but the absence of my dad in our lives remains to feel immense to me.

I tried very hard to remember the things that my dad loved/hated about Christmas and I made sure I told Lana and Bill all about them. Mom helped me to remember and we had a few laughs and tears about our memories. I am so grateful to have mom here with me for the comfort of just having your mommy. I told Lana about how Grandpa Dennis always would make fun of homes with WAY too many lights, but he secretly loved to put lights on our own house, and later his house in VA. He also loved to listen to Christmas music, but he found Rocking Around the Christmas Tree and Jingle Bell Rock to be the most annoying tunes out there! Every year when I was growing up he would take me for a special day of Christmas shopping, just the two of us, list in hand, so that we could shop for my mom. Although my dad hated big crowds and shopping in general, he actually loved to Christmas shop. We would always talk about whether it "felt like Christmas" whether "we had the Christmas spirit this year", which would often depend on how much snow we had (growing up in Buffalo, you EXPECT a white Christmas). We would get mom way too many gifts, we would have lunch at Swiss Chalet (its a Buffalo thing) and then I would wrap them as soon as we got home. We both really enjoyed this day together every year.

My mom told me that when I was a kid I made my wish list for Santa, which always had a ton of things on it. Mom and Dad would then discuss what would be purchased since we were on a very tight budget at the time. Apparently, on Christmas Eve my dad would go out and buy the rest of the items on my list, which infuriated my mom b/c it blew the budget out the window. Another tradition we had was that my dad would get my mom 2 lbs of chocolate from a local candy shop--a pound of "turtles" which were carmel and pecans covered in chocolate and a pound of "sponge candy" which is a honeycomb candy covered in chocolate. These were under the tree every single year and we each got to eat some on Christmas morning.

I miss him, but we have some wonderful memories of Christmases past. I am happy that I made it through the holidays this year without totally falling apart. I felt a little sad at times, but overall, we had a great holiday with the grandparents and the kids. I didn't get a lot of photos b/c we were just too busy enjoying ourselves and each other, which is what Christmas is all about.